Iraq names Saddam's daughter, wife in wanted list

IRAQ: Iraq named Saddam Hussein's eldest daughter and first wife on a most-wanted list along with top Baathists and al Qaeda's new leader in Iraq, a day after the bloodiest bombing in three months killed over 60.

In Baghdad, mortar and gunfire rang across a Sunni Arab neighbourhood and militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades prowled the streets, a Reuters witness said. U.S. armoured vehicles entered the area as U.S. helicopters flew overhead.

It was not immediately clear who was involved in the clashes in Adhamiya, a Sunni insurgent bastion near the Shi'ite Sadr City where a car bomb devastated a market in the deadliest blast since a Shi'ite-led unity government was formed six weeks ago.

The 41 "most wanted" list, which offers a $10 million bounty for former Saddam deputy Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, accuses Saddam's daughter, Raghd, and her mother of using millions stolen by the former Iraqi leader to finance Sunni insurgents.

Raghd has taken a leading role in organising her father's legal defence in his trial for crimes against humanity. Aged about 40, she lives in Jordan having been granted asylum there.

Her mother Sajida is also on a list that includes the new head of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri. The government also offered a $50,000 reward for Masri far less than the $5 million the United States placed on the man named by Osama bin Laden to succeed Zarqawi. The low sum may be intended to insult.

"We're releasing this list so that our people can know their enemies," National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told a televised news conference to unveil the pictorial list.

Meanwhile spokesmen for two insurgent groups in Iraq said Sunday they would reject the prime minister's reconciliation plan unless it included terms for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces, with one group calling for direct talks with the Americans.

The spokesman of the Islamic Army in Iraq, Ibrahim al-Shammari, said Iraqis reserved the right to fight those he accused of occupying the country and could not agree to a plan that called on them to renounce violence against the foreign forces.

"As long there is occupation there should be a resistance," he said on Al-Jazeera television. "How can they ask us to disarm and to attend a negotiations with a government appointed by the occupation?" "If the Americans are serious, we are ready to have negotiations with them as counterparts and on the basis of equality," he said. "Moreover, it is not possible to sit with their agents or tails."

Baghdad, Monday, Reuters