WASHINGTON, June 21: The most important Iraqi captured by US troops yet has told his interrogators that former President Saddam Hussein is alive with his two sons, who fled to Syria after the fall of Baghdad and later returned to Iraq, US officials said on Saturday.

The officials, who asked not to be identified, said an intense hunt was under way in Iraq for Saddam and the sons, Uday and Qusay, but that intelligence agencies were not sure if Saddam’s captured former secretary was telling the truth.

“If it was specific, we would have them,” one US official told Reuters of the information provided by Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, captured earlier this week in Iraq.

“We are looking very hard” for Saddam and the sons, said another official.

The officials confirmed reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post that Saddam and his sons were apparently alive and that the captive told his interrogators he himself and the sons at one point fled to Syria and then reentered Iraq.

Syria has denied US charges it harbored Saddam or members of his family or that it has any knowledge top former Iraqi leaders might have taken refuge in the neighboring nation during or since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam.

Officials told Reuters the “information, or perhaps disinformation,” from Mahmud Tikriti had intensified the ongoing hunt for Saddam and the sons by US Special Operations troops and paramilitary intelligence agents in Iraq.

White House officials said on Friday it was unclear if the former Iraqi leader was alive or dead although other officials acknowledged there was growing evidence he might be alive.

“We know that this guy (Mahmud Tikriti) was his (Saddam’s) shadow at one time. But who knows what’s true and what’s not here,” one US official said on Saturday.

Mahmud Tikriti was regarded by Washington as the most wanted Iraqi figure after Saddam and his sons.—Reuters