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Saddam aide arrested

BAGHDAD April 19. The Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein's Finance Minister was arrested and a top scientist turned himself in, U.S. officials said today, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the search for the toppled regime's wealth as well as any biological and chemical weapons.

In Baghdad, there were signs of progress in a city struggling to emerge from war and lawlessness. Iraqi police worked alongside U.S. troops, and hundreds of demonstrators exercised their new freedom to march, demanding that the foreign troops withdraw. Shia Muslims prepared for their annual pilgrimage, a practice discouraged under Mr. Hussein's Sunni Muslim regime.

Whiskey and beer — banned in public by Mr. Hussein — was being sold on the streets of Baghdad for the first time in years.

But in a reminder that small-scale fighting still persists more than a week after the collapse of Mr. Hussein's regime, U.S. troops faced small-arms fire at a palace in Tikrit. No one was hurt or arrested.

U.S. Central Command said today that members of the newly revived Iraqi police force arrested Hikmat Mizban Ibrahim al-Azzawi, who was Mr. Hussein's finance chief and a Deputy Prime Minister, in Baghdad on Friday and turned him over to U.S. troops. He is among the 55 ex-Iraqi leaders on the U.S. most-wanted list.

A Central Command spokesman, Marine Capt. Stewart Upton, said Mr. al-Azzawi's arrest showed that Iraqi police ``are going after regime leaders.''

Capt. Upton suggested that Mr. al-Azzawi should know where the regime kept its wealth hidden. ``It's money for the people of Iraq, and we seek to have that for the building of the future of Iraq,'' he said.

`Nerve agent expert' surrenders

Also on Friday, Emad Husayn Abdullah al-Ani — depicted as the mastermind of Iraq's nerve agent programme — turned himself in to the Americans. Mr. al-Ani may be able to provide information on any chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, or evidence of links between Mr. Hussein's regime and the Al-Qaeda terrorist group.

U.S. officials say he was involved in Iraq's development of the deadly nerve agent VX. He was also accused by U.S. officials in 1998 of involvement with a chemical plant in Sudan linked to the Al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden.

The Central Command also said that Khala Khader al-Salahat, a member of the Abu Nidal terrorist organisation, had surrendered to Marines in Baghdad. Abu Nidal, who died in Baghdad last year under murky circumstances, led a terror campaign blamed for more than 275 deaths on several continents.

In northern Iraq, where Kurds run an autonomous region, scores of fighters forced to fight for Mr. Hussein were freed by their Kurdish captors and began their journey home after as long as three weeks in detention at a prison camp in a tranquil mountain valley.

In the southern city of An Nasiriyah, local police and firefighting forces are operating, with 200 Iraqis guarding ``critical facilities'' in the city and providing traffic control.

Shia pilgrimage

Hundreds of Shia Muslims marched through the streets in a prelude to their annual pilgrimage to the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala in southern Iraq. Thousands of Shias — who comprise 60 per cent of Iraq's 24 million people — are expected to make the pilgrimage on foot this year.

U.S. troops said fighting in the capital had all but stopped. Merchants were selling whiskey by the bottle and beer by the can on the streets. Hundreds of Iraqis swarmed the Palestine Hotel in hopes of obtaining jobs with the transitional government.

Later, about 500 people marched toward the hotel, carrying such signs as ``No to occupation.''

U.S. troops were clearing the city of unexploded ordnance. Four U.S. soldiers on patrol were injured today when an Iraqi girl handed them an explosive, a canister-size piece of a cluster bomb, and it blew up, U.S. officials said. The girl, who appeared to be about 7 years old, suffered hand injuries.

U.S. troops also have been guarding bank vaults in Baghdad that were blasted open by robbers using rocket-propelled grenades. One group of Marines, equipped with machine guns and tanks, has been standing watch over what they estimated was $1 billion in gold.

A U.S. patrol came across an estimated $650 million in U.S. currency, the Los Angeles Times newspaper reported today. The cash, believed to be authentic, was found in a Tigris River neighbourhood where senior Baath party and Republican Guard officials lived.

Meanwhile, Iraqi antiquities officials reported that a small number of artifacts looted from the National Museum — including pottery and metal pieces — had been returned. In Jordon, customs authorities seized 42 paintings believed to have been looted from the museum from people entering from Iraq's western desert. — AP

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