Tikrit, Nov 13: Saddam Hussein has disguised himself and has been moving around the areas outside of his hometown of Tikrit, but not in the city itself, where he would be too easily recognised, an Iraqi Police official said. Hamed Muzhir, police chief of Salah Ad-Din province, which includes Tikrit, did not say when Saddam was last seen or how he knew that the former dictator was in the area.
Muzhir's forces early yesterday conducted house-to-house searches in a suburb of Tikrit, looking for weapons and insurgents.
"Saddam has covered himself up to be a completely different person," Muzhir told reporters in a news conference. "He passed through these areas very fast, around the area of Tikrit, not inside."
The United States regards the capture of Saddam as crucial to breaking the growing insurgency in Sunni Muslim central Iraq, the region that was most loyal to Saddam. Most top officials in Saddam's government were members of his Sunni minority. Bureau Report