AS SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar, April 18 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Samir al-Aziz al-Najim, a former oil and interior minister in Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government, was captured by Iraqi Kurds near Mosul and handed over to American forces, U.S. Brigadier General Vincent Brooks announced here Friday, April 18.

"Special operation forces last night captured another key member of the regime, Samir al-Aziz al-Najim, one of the top 55 members of the regime," Brooks told reporters at the U.S. Central Command war headquarters in Qatar.

Najim was a Baath Party regional command chairman for East Baghdad and listed as number 24 on the U.S. most-wanted list, handed out to U.S. forces as playing cards to aid the search, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

He had served as oil and interior minister as well as Saddam Hussein's chief of staff for several years following the 1991 Gulf War.

"We know that he certainly has an insight on how the Baath Party Central Committee worked," Brooks said, adding there were some indications that Najim may have been posted to the north of the country to take command of some military operations there.

Brooks said Najim "is believed to have first-hand knowledge of the Baath party central structure."

"All the members of that list of 55 have useful information about the inner workings, the inside of this regime, and more importantly some of its actions and decisions that have been taken over time," he said.

To date, U.S.-led forces in Iraq have captured four of the 55 people who figure on the list.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) spokesman Hoshiyar Zebari told a news conference in Salahaddin in northern Iraq on Thursday, April 17, that another Saddam half-brother, Watban Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, was captured in the western part of Mosul.

General Amer al-Saadi, Saddam's top scientific advisor, surrendered to the U.S.-led forces last weekend.

Saddam and his two sons, Qusay and Uday, are at the top of the list.

U.S. officials say they do not know if they are dead or alive after two air strikes aimed at killing Saddam few days before war began, but they said the success of the war does not depend on finding them.