Report: Despite $10 million bounty, al-Douri new head of Baath pary

Douri Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam Hussein’s faithful henchman, now leads the deceased dictator’s Baath party in its fight against the US-backed Iraqi Government.

The 64-year-old fighter, stricken with leukaemia, who befriended Saddam as a young man, supposedly cried and read the Holy Koran when he heard that his comrade had been executed early Saturday morning, a senior Baath official said.

Mr al-Douri had been nominated as the acting general secretary of the Baath party, the official said, who went by the pseudonym “Abu Abdullah”.

Mr al-Douri has had a $10 million US bounty on his head since November 2003. The grizzled hardman defied the odds, staying on the run long after Saddam was captured, hiding three years ago in Ad-Dawr, a village belonging to Mr al- Douri’s tribe.

“Abdullah” described the intricate security network that has allowed Mr
al-Douri to evade US troops: “He has about 600 men working for him, to secure his movements. He can’t stay more than a week to ten days in any one place. He has received offers for vacations in Arab and Islamic countries to go there and receive medical treatment, but he has refused because he is afraid if he gets out, the party will collapse.”

Read the rest at the Times of London