Word: mahmud
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...houseguest was told to make his bed under the stars because the power had gone out and it was too hot inside without air conditioning. From the rooftop balcony of the two-story house in northern Tikrit where he sought refuge early last week, Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, the fourth-most-wanted man in Iraq, had a panorama on a life come undone. To the south he could make out the sprawling family farmlands where he used to spend weekends with his boss and cousin, Saddam Hussein. A few miles up the road stood the ex-regime's garish...
...never got the chance. Just before 1 a.m. last Tuesday, three U.S. attack helicopters swooped toward the house, where Mahmud had been staying for two days; the owner of the home, Kaffia Awad, told TIME that she had taken in Mahmud as a favor to a family friend, who initially did not reveal the guest's true identity. According to Awad, Mahmud's brother, father and son visited him at the house on Monday afternoon. Hours later, the Americans, who had been receiving intelligence on Mahmud's movements for weeks, moved in with a force of 30 soldiers, including special...
Well, not the guy but certainly the guy they expected to find and who, they hope, will lead them to the guy. After Mahmud's arrest, say U.S. officials, he was taken to a site near Baghdad International Airport, where military and intelligence investigators began pumping him for information on the whereabouts of Saddam, his two sons Uday and Qusay, and the 23 other top henchmen still at large. As Saddam's closest adviser and consigliere--a source close to the family told TIME that even Saddam's sons needed Mahmud's permission to meet with their father--Mahmud...
...Even if Mahmud's interrogation sheds no light on Saddam's whereabouts, it might be useful to the U.S. in other ways. "He holds the key to all the locked doors," including details of Iraq's weapons-of-massdestruction program, says a businessman who has met repeatedly with Mahmud in recent years. This source believes Mahmud represents a real danger to Saddam--and an asset to the Americans--because he "likes to talk too much...
...officials hope Mahmud's apprehension and the additional captures to which it may lead will serve another cause as well: the stifling of armed resistance to the American presence in Iraq. Four U.S. soldiers were killed by enemy fire across Iraq last week; since May 26, the tally is 15. Pentagon officials say they see no evidence that attacks by what they call noncompliant forces are directed by Saddam. But Hicks says the attacks have been coordinated by "tier one" officials from Saddam's intelligence services, as well as senior members of the former Iraqi army's elite Republican Guard...