BAGHDAD — One of the most wanted men in Iraq, who served as chief deputy to former President Saddam Hussein, has died, according to reports in Arabic media outlets Friday.
Izzat Ibrahim, 63, was believed to be a key financier and strategist for the bloody insurgency that followed the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq that toppled the Hussein regime. He had been diagnosed with cancer at least six years ago.
Along with Hussein and Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, Ibrahim was the only surviving participant in the 1968 coup that brought the Sunni-dominated Baath Party to power in Iraq. U.S. military sources said they were investigating the reports of his death, which could not be independently confirmed Friday. The media reports did not say where Ibrahim had died.
Ibrahim was the highest-ranking official of the Hussein regime still at large and the U.S. had posted a $10-million reward for his capture or death. In the original list of 55 high-level fugitives prepared in playing card form by U.S. officials, Ibrahim was assigned the status of king of clubs.
Many Iraqis greeted the news of the death of Ibrahim, who was being hunted for his role in the chemical bombing of Kurdish villages in 1988 among other alleged crimes, with happiness mixed with chagrin that he had yet again escaped justice. Hussein and seven other former regime officials have been charged with human rights violations and are being held for eventual trial.
"I feel sad because he was not presented to the trial as his fellow criminals. He should have been captured alive. Everybody hates him, he was a big man in Saddam government, and he supported Saddam from the beginning," said Ihab Issa, 23, a civil engineer. "He made many crimes by his hands."
"A very dirty page, a dark period in the Iraqi recent political history was wrapped up," said Ahmed Salman, a Baghdad engineer. "We got rid of a source of unrest. The death of this man and the expected execution of Saddam will leave the Baathists without a leader, and the violence will be much less."
Terrorism experts called Ibrahim's death a blow to the insurgency. John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington D.C.-based military affairs think tank, said that Ibrahim, a devout Sunni Arab, linked Islamist fighters with Baath Party insurgents.
"I think that [Al Qaeda in Iraq leader] Abu Musab Zarqawi would have had a very hard time doing what he was doing without Ibrahim and his circle of influence," Pike said.
