BAGHDAD, Nov 11: Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, one of military dictator Saddam Hussein’s top deputies and a man who eluded US capture despite a hefty bounty on his head, reportedly died on Friday at the age of 63.

The notice of his death came not from the US military, but from a statement signed by the dissolved Baath Party command.

“The leader of the resistance died on Friday, Nov 11 at 2:20 am,” according to the statement signed by the Baath command received by AFP. There was no immediate confirmation of his death.

Ibrahim was one of Saddam’s most feared right-hand men and was said to be suffering from leukemia.

In November 2003 US authorities put a 10-million-dollar bounty on his head. In Iraq, only Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — the Jordanian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq — has a higher reward for his capture or killing.

A trusted aide of Saddam since the very beginning of his rise to power, Ibrahim was a natural choice for the sensitive mission of leading an underground resistance network.

He was seen as the man who could potentially serve as a link between the Saddam regime and radical Al Qaeda militants.—AFP