Free Republic

'King of clubs' being sheltered by Syrian army By Damien Mcelroy in Damascus (Filed: 11/05/2003) The king of clubs from America's card deck of most wanted Iraqis is being sheltered at a military base in the Syrian capital Damascus, according to a Gulf diplomat. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former vice-president of Iraq and one of Saddam Hussein's closest henchmen, is said to be under the protection of Syria's Republican Guard in the decrepit military base near the airport. He is among thousands of regime figures who are believed to have slipped into Syria before Damascus sealed the border. Izzat had...

Saddam VP's hideout found 07/12/2007 16:07 - (SA) Baghdad - Security forces stormed a hideout belonging to Izzet al-Douri, the former Iraqi vice president under Saddam Hussein, in a village near Tikrit, 170km north of Baghdad, an Iraqi official said on Friday. They broke into the hideout based on confirmed intelligence that al-Douri was using it to hold meetings with his aides, said the source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The forces did not find al-Douri, but seized documents with information on the al-Qaeda terrorist network and other militias, their activities and the techniques used to conduct their...

The United States has concluded that Syria helped finance the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. Officials said the regime of President Bashar Assad used the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria to relay hundreds of millions of dollars to Saddam Hussein loyalists in Iraq. They said the money has been deployed to finance the insurgency against the U.S.-led coalition primarily in Iraq's Sunni Triangle. The Commercial Bank of Syria held more than $1 billion in Saddam regime accounts on the eve of the U.S.-led war in Iraq in March 2003, officials said. Most of that money stemmed from Iraqi arms and...