SADDAM HUSSEIN’S half-brother — Sabawi Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti — who has allegedly fled to Syria, appears on the US State Department’s “dirty dozen” list of the Iraqi President’s inner circle.

His capture has been identified by US commanders as a key priority in the prosecution of a successful war.

Sabawi Ibrahim was in charge of the Mukhabarat secret police during the 1991 Gulf War. Opponents accuse him of involvement in the brutal suppression of Iraqi Kurds during the failed uprising against Saddam’s rule in 1991.

He was named director of Iraq’s general security later that year, but was removed in 1996 when Saddam became suspicious of his loyalty. Like many in Saddam’s circle, Sabawi Ibrahim is well versed in the rule of fear at the heart of the regime.

The Iraqi opposition reported last year that he had been placed under house arrest and banned from leaving the country after seeking permission to leave Iraq.

He is one of three half- brothers of the Iraqi leader, sons of Saddam’s mother and stepfather, Hassan al-Ibrahim.

Saddam’s paranoia has been stoked by a string of family defections in the past decade.

In 1995, General Hussein Kamel Hassan and his brother, Colonel Saddam Kamel, both married to daughters of Saddam, defected to Jordan.

In a press conference in Amman four days later, General Hassan called for the overthrow of Saddam.

He returned to Iraq with his brother and their wives, Raghad and Rana, after an apparent pardon from the Iraqi leader. Three days later the two brothers were murdered at their homes in Baghdad. Members of Saddam’s regime said they had been shot by their own relatives, seeking to restore family honour. But Jordan and American Intelligence said that Saddam had ordered their execution.

The perils of defection would have been only too familiar to Sabawi Ibrahim.

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