伊拉克国防部官员9月5日说，萨达姆政权第二号人物易卜拉欣当天在伊中北部城市提克里特附近被捕。但负责伊中部地区防务的伊国民卫队高级指挥官萨勒曼少将随后称，他指挥的部队并没有抓获易卜拉欣，也没有参与任何此类追捕行动。

Iraqi authorities claimed on Sunday to have captured Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the most wanted member of Saddam Hussein's ousted dictatorship, but there was confusion over the report, as the Iraqi defense minister said word of his arrest was "baseless ."

There have been incorrect reports of al-Douri's arrest in the past as U.S. and Iraqi forces hunt for the man who was once one of Saddam's most senior deputies. Sunday's report centered on a raid near al-Douri's hometown of Adwar, north of Baghdad.

Iraq's top information official said al-Douri was seized while receiving medical treatment at a clinic near Adwar and that DNA tests were underway to confirm his identity. Al-Douri reportedly suffers from leukemia , and needs blood transfusions.

"We are sure he is Izzat Ibrahim," information official Ibrahim Janabi said. "He was arrested in a clinic in Makhoul near Tikrit and Adwar and 60 percent of the DNA test has finished."

Later, however, the Iraqi defense minister, Hazem Shaalan, said in an interview with Lebanon's Al Hayat-LBC television that reports that Izzat Ibrahim was captured were "baseless."

"We don't have any information on this subject or on the reports that allegedly came out from the defense ministry," he said.

"They are baseless. There are search operations by the national guards troops and multinational troops going on during which some terrorist positions were shelled. There were rumors that Izzat al-Douri or someone who resembles him were in that position but we don't have any information on Izzat specifically," he said.

U.S. Maj. Neal O'Brien of the Tikrit-based 1st Infantry Division said he could not confirm the report and U.S.-led forces issued a statement saying he was not in U.S. custody. A senior U.S. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Americans had no information to indicate that al-Douri had been arrested.

Iraqi Minister of State Qassim Dawoud also claimed that al-Douri was arrested and said 150 men defending him also were detained.

Meanwhile, a mortar barrage Sunday evening hit a U.S. base on the western edge of Baghdad, killing two U.S. soldiers and wounding 16 others, one critically, Maj. Richard Spiegel of the Army's 13th Corps Support Command said.

The soldiers killed and wounded all belonged to the 13th Corps Support, which oversees distribution of fuel, food and water to U.S. forces. As of Friday, 976 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to the Defense Department.

Al-Douri, once the vice chairman of the Baath Party's Revolutionary Command Council, is the most prominent member of Saddam's inner circle who had not been captured or killed. U.S. military officials believe he played an organizing role in the 16-month-old insurgency.

He is No. 6 on the U.S. military's list of 55 most-wanted figures from Saddam's regime - the king of clubs in the deck of cards - and U.S. forces have offered a $10 million [color="#808000"]bounty[/color] for his arrest. Forty-four of the people on the list already have been killed or captured.