Washington, June 21: Saddam Hussein has survived the US-led war on Iraq and his sons Uday and Quasay have fled to Syria, according to a captured top lieutenant of the toppled dictator. Abid Hamad Mahmoud al-Tikriti, who was arrested by the American forces in Iraq earlier this week, has told them that he himself fled to Syria with Uday and Qusay, New York Times quoted unnamed defence officials as saying. Mahmoud has said that he was forced to return to Iraq but the sons of Saddam, and perhaps Saddam himself, are in Syria, according to Pentagon officials. The officials said they will try to check out whether the report is true. The times said the accuracy of the claims made by Abid Hamad Mahmud, who was arrested in Iraq last Monday, had not been assessed yet.

But they said the US regarded the information as having huge potential significance, and that clandestine American military activity aimed at capturing Saddam and his sons, Uday and Qusay, had increased sharply, the paper wrote.
If Mahmud's account is true, it would be "the most authoritative confirmation that neither Saddam nor his sons were killed in American attacks in March and April," it added.
Mahmud, who ranked behind only Saddam and his sons in importance in the Iraqi government, has told the interrogators that during the weeks after the war with the United States he spent time in hiding with the former Iraqi leader himself and then fled to Syria with Uday and Qusay.

Bureau Report