This just in..

Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam's terrorist-in-chief and right hand man, is reported to have died. He supposedly suffers from leukemia, but has been largely in hiding since the invasion. He was also reported to be a key figure in Saddam's post-war plans, ie, the insurgency. Said the Ba'ath party:

"The leader of the resistance... died on 11 November, at 0220 [Thursday 2320 GMT],"

No independent confirmation. Let's see, Saddam's trial gets delayed, lawyers are murdered, al Douri passes away. Wonder what's next?

MORE 11/11

Here's a pretty good synopsis of al-Douri's career as a Ba'athist gangster from Global Security. Here's another mention from the Jamestown Foundation. Both detail al-Douri's involvement in a project began in 1993 called "al-Hamlah al-Imaniyyah", or return to faith.

"He details, in what is a surprising essay to find on a jihadist forum (and subsequently removed), the innovation under Saddam's rule of the "Return to Faith Campaign" directed by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the former Vice President of Saddam's Revolutionary Council. The campaign aimed at fanning sectarian flames to secure the suppression of the Shi'a in the south following the 1991 uprising in the wake of the allied operation to expel the Iraqis from Kuwait. The author of the posting explains the plethora of Islamist groups as fronts for the fallen regime's intelligence departments, shrewdly exchanging the Arab nationalist label for one more in tune with the times--Salafism."

A constant sticking point between the anti-war and pro-war folks has been whether Saddam would coordinate or cooperate with Salafists or Wahabbists, ie, could Saddam and Bin Laden/AQ have any links. In Dan Darling's article for the Weekly Standard a few months back, he noted al-Douri's role:

The first postwar evidence of this emerged in October 2003, when NBC reported that two captured members of Ansar al-Islam revealed that al-Douri was helping to coordinate their attacks inside Iraq.

Indeed, after the fall of Baghdad Izzat appeared to be a ringleader in a network of Ba'ath supported terrorist groups posing as insurgents. His relation to al-Zarqawi is uncertain, but it's not a huge leap to believe that prior to the invasion he encouraged AQ warriors to fight on Saddam's side afterwards. Taking it a step further, it shows a willingness to do whatever it takes to protect the regime, including working with religious fanatics or even pretending to be one.

ANOTHER UPDATE (11/12)

Al-Douri might be the new Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Or, perhaps he's taking a page out of Arafat's on again-off again death book. Reports are now suggesting he might not be quite as dead as was earlier reported. Al-Douri does have a strange habit of defying his own news reports. He was believed captured a few years ago, whereupon it was learned that another red-headed man in his clan had been snatched. There were also rumors he once faked his death during Saddam's reign, and survived an assassination attempt.