BASRA, Iraq April 7 —
Ali Hassan al-Majid, one of the most brutal members of President
Saddam Hussein's inner circle, was apparently killed by an airstrike
on his house in Basra, British officials said Monday. He had been
dubbed "Chemical Ali" by opponents for ordering a 1988 poison gas
attack that killed thousands of Kurds.
Maj. Andrew Jackson of the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment told
The Associated Press that his superiors had reported the death of
the man who was Saddam's first cousin, entrusted with defending
southern Iraq against invading coalition forces.
Al-Majid apparently was killed on Saturday when two coalition
aircraft used laser-guided munitions to attack his house in Basra.
Jackson said a body that was thought to be his was found along with
that of his bodyguard and the head of Iraqi intelligence services in
Basra.
"We have some strong indications that he was killed in the raid,"
said British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon. "I cannot yet absolutely
confirm the fact that he (al-Majid) is dead, but that would
certainly my best judgment of the situation."
U.S. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, at a daily briefing in Qatar,
said he did not have any confirmed reports on whether al-Majid was
dead.
Brooks said the coalition had seen evidence of Iraqi leaders in
their homes recently and "we believe that Ali Hassan al-Majid
'Chemical Ali" may have been in a home.
"Where we have the opportunity, we may direct an attack against
that," he said.
Jackson said the apparent discovery of al-Majid's body was one of
the reasons the British decided to move infantry into Basra, because
they hoped that resistance in the southern Iraqi city might crumble
with the top leadership gone.
"The regime is finished. It is over, and liberation is here,"
said Group Capt. Al Lockwood, spokesman for British forces in the
Gulf. "The leadership is now gone in southern Iraq."
Believed to be in his fifties, al-Majid led a 1988 campaign
against rebellious Kurds in northern Iraq in which whole villages
were wiped out. An estimated 100,000 Kurds, mostly civilians, were
killed.
Al-Majid also has been linked to the bloody crackdown on Shiites
in southern Iraq after their uprising following the 1991 Gulf War.
Prior to that, he served as governor of Kuwait during Iraq's
seven-month occupation of its neighbor in 1990-1991 an invasion that
led to the Gulf War.
Human rights groups had called for al-Majid's arrest on war
crimes charges when he toured Arab capitals last January seeking to
rally support against mounting U.S. pressure on Saddam's regime.
"Al-Majid is Saddam Hussein's hatchet man," Kenneth Roth, head of
Human Rights Watch in New York, said at the time. "He has been
involved in some of Iraq's worst crimes, including genocide and
crimes against humanity."
Hazem al-Youssefi, Cairo representative of the opposition
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, described al-Majid as a standout in a
regime of criminals.
Al-Majid was a warrant officer and motorcycle messenger in the
army before Saddam's Baath party led a coup in 1968. He was promoted
to general and served as defense minister from 1991-95, as well as a
regional party leader.
In 1988, as the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was winding down, he
commanded a scorched-earth campaign to wipe out a Kurdish rebellion
in northern Iraq. Later, he boasted about the attacks, including the
March 16, 1988, poison gas strike on the village of Halabja, where
an estimated 5,000 people died.
During April 1991 peace talks in Baghdad, the Kurdish delegation
leader, Jalal Talabani, told al-Majid that more than 200,000 Kurds
lost their lives in the Iraqi campaign. Al-Majid replied that the
figure was exaggerated and the dead were not more than 100,000,
according to Arab press reports.
After Iraq's 1991 Shiite Muslim uprising was crushed, Iraqi
opposition groups released a video they said had been smuggled out
of southern Iraq. In the video, which was shown on several Arab TV
networks, al-Majid was seen executing captured rebels with pistol
shots to the head and kicking others in the face as they sat on the
ground.
He was no less brutal with his own family.
His nephew and Saddam's son-in-law, Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel, was
in charge for many years of Iraq's clandestine weapons programs
before defecting in 1995 to Jordan with his brother, Saddam Kamel,
who was married to Saddam's other daughter.
Both brothers were lured back to Iraq in February 1996 and killed
on their uncle's orders, together with several other family
members.
Syria and Lebanon ignored international calls to arrest al-Majid
when he visited in January. He dropped scheduled stops in Jordan and
Egypt both U.S. allies. Egypt refused to receive him and the
Jordanian government denied a visit was ever planned.
Associated Press writer Maamoun Youssef contributed to this
report from Cairo, Egypt.
photo credit
and caption:
Iraqi Gen. Ali Hassan al-Majid
is seen in this Jan. 17, 2003 file photo. al-Majid, dubbed
"Chemical Ali" by opponents of the Iraqi regime for ordering a
poison gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds, has been
found dead, a British officer said Monday, April 7, 2003. Maj.
Andrew Jackson of the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment told
The Associated Press that his superiors had confirmed the
death of the man who is also President Saddam Hussein's first
cousin. (AP Photo/Bassem
Tellawi)
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