Ousted Iraqi defence minister surrenders
The former Iraqi defence minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed has reportedly surrendered to US forces in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
Mr Ahmed was at number 27 in the US military’s list of 55 most wanted Iraqis and the eight of hearts in a pack of playing cards issued to US troops to help them identify fugitive Iraqi leaders.
He is believed to have handed himself in to the American general in charge of northern Iraq, Major-General David Petraeus.
Dawood Bagistani, the Kurdish mediator who arranged Mr Ahmed’s surrender, explained that the US had pledged to treat the former member of Saddam Hussein’s government well and he would be held just long enough for the Americans to question him thoroughly.
Unlike most members of the ousted regime, Mr Ahmed would not face indefinite confinement or prosecution, Mr Bagistani, a Kurdish human rights official, explained. ‘His health is excellent and he is in high spirits,’ the mediator told reporters in Mosul. ‘He kept saying that he was a military man and did his job.’
Analysts claim that Mr Ahmed was largely a figurehead in the Iraqi armed forces. In the 1991 Gulf War, he was chosen to head the Iraqi delegation at ceasefire talks near the border with Kuwait. He will now be transferred to Baghdad for questioning.
A letter from US General Petraeus, quoted by the Associated Press, read, ‘you have my word that you will be treated with the utmost dignity and respect, and that you will not be physically or mentally mistreated while under my custody’.
Meanwhile, three more American soldiers have been killed in an ambush near Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit. The troops were killed as they investigated a suspected launch site for rocket-propelled grenades in the village of al-Ouja, just south of Tikrit.
An earlier attack on Thursday on a convoy near the town of Khaldiyah, west of Baghdad, left three dead and several injured after an explosive device blew up a transport truck. Troops attempting to remove casualties then came under fire.
In another incident in the flashpoint town of Falluja, US troops reportedly opened fire, killing a teenage boy, after mistaking celebratory gunfire at a wedding for an attack. Witnesses reported at least four people injured.
