U.S. Forces Capture 'Chemical Ali'

B A G H D A D, Iraq, Aug. 21, 2003 -- — Ali Hassan Majid, one of the most notorious members of Saddam Hussein's regime, also known as "Chemical Ali" for his role in the gas attacks on Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s, has been captured in Iraq, U.S. officials confirmed today.

U.S. military officials said Majid, Saddam's first cousin and No. 5 on the U.S. list of most-wanted Iraqis, was captured Sunday by Special Operations Task Force 20 during a raid north of Baghdad. No further details of his capture were released.

Task Force 20 is the elite unit responsible for hunting down Saddam and other key members of the regime. The unit was involved in the raid in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul last month that resulted in the killing of Saddam's sons, Odai and Qusai Hussein.

ABCNEWS has learned that Majid's arrest was not immediately made public since U.S. officials were conducting DNA tests to ascertain that they had the right man. More importantly, sources said, officials did not want news of his capture leaking to Saddam in case the two of them were in contact.

The hope was that U.S. officials could act on anything Ali told them before Saddam learned of the capture and changed his routine.

In early April, British forces said they believed they had killed Majid in an airstrike on his home in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, but the Pentagon could not confirm his death and now knows Majid survived the attack.

U.S. military officials have declined to provide details on whether Majid, the latest of Saddam's closest advisers to be apprehended, had been playing a role in organizing anti-American resistance in recent months.

"Chemical Ali has been active in some ways in influencing people in and around him in a regional way," Gen. John Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command, told reporters in Washington today.

‘Pioneer’ of Gas Attacks

News of "Chemical Ali's" capture was greeted by celebrations in the northern Iraqi cities of Kirkuk, Irbil and Sulaymaniyah today, with jubilant Kurdish families, dressed in traditional clothes, driving into the streets shouting, "We're happy they captured Ali."

Majid was particularly feared by the Kurdish community for his role in "Operation Anfal," a sustained campaign to quell Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq during the dying days of the Iran-Iraq war.

A man believed to have pioneered the use of chemical gas to suppress rebellion in Saddam's Iraq, Majid was the King of Spades in the U.S. deck of cards depicting fugitive former Iraqi officials.

His latest position in a long career of loyal service to his paternal cousin was as governor of the southern Iraqi zone after Saddam divided the country into four defensive zones during the lead-up to the Iraq war.

Majid's reputation for brutality was so entrenched that his appointment as governor of the southern zone was taken by some Shiites as a sign that Saddam was preparing to gas the Shiites of the south.

That did not happen, but Ali's role in the use of mustard gas to put down a Kurdish rebellion in 1987 and 1988 has left an indelible on the psyche of the Iraqi people, especially the Kurdish community.

Hundreds of villages were razed, and more than 100,000 Kurds were killed in the attacks around the northern Iraqi city of Halabja. For most Iraqis, the prospect of low-flying helicopters belching poisonous gases came to symbolize the extent of the punishment Majid was ready to mete out for any rebellion against Saddam.

A Significant Capture

In a long career as Saddam's enforcer, Majid acted as military governor of Kuwait shortly after Iraq invaded the country from August 1990 to November 1990. During his administration, Kuwaitis suffered torture, murder, rape, and wholesale looting.

After the end of the 1991 Gulf War, he became interior minister and brutally suppressed a Shiite revolt in southern Iraq.

In his time under Saddam, "Chemical Ali" also served as Iraq's defense minister, security chief, and director of the Revolutionary Command Council. He was apparently proud of his work: In tapes of meetings discovered by Kurdish rebels in 1991, he could be heard gloating over his massacres.

According to ABCNEWS military analyst Tony Cordesman, Majid "presumably knew as much as anyone" about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, as well as the means by which Baghdad tried to block U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq before the latest war.

And some experts say Majid's capture has raised hopes that his interrogation could lead to the capture of Saddam.

But at a press briefing in Washington today, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declined to provide details of the information coalition forces hoped to gain from Majid's interrogation.

"We won't know until we've had an opportunity to visit with him," said Rumsfeld.

Majid's capture is a major victory for the coalition in Iraq and comes days after Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former Iraqi vice president and another trusted Saddam enforcer, was captured in northern Iraq.

ABCNEWS' Mike Von Fremd in Baghdad and Brian Hartman and Martha Raddatz in Washington contributed to this report.