IRAQ:The mystery of who killed Mr Nick Berg, the freelance contractor beheaded on video, took a new twist last night when Iraqi police claimed they had arrested four suspects with links to Saddam Hussein's family.
Iraqi security officials yesterday said Mr Berg's alleged killers were part of a group led by a close relative of Saddam, his nephew, Yasser al-Sabawi.
The men were seized a week ago after a tip-off, they said. All were former members of the Fedayeen Saddam, the paramilitary group notorious for its loyalty to Iraq's ex-president.
But last night the US military spokesman, Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt said American forces had arrested four men linked to the Berg case after a raid in Baghdad. Two had been released and two were still being questioned, he said.
He added: "'I don't know their prior affiliations or prior organisations. We have some intelligence that would suggest they have knowledge, perhaps some culpability."
It was not clear whether the two raids were related. The contradictory revelations add to the confusion in the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping and execution of Mr Berg, who disappeared after checking out of his Baghdad hotel on April 10th.
Following his murder, the CIA claimed there was a "high probability" that Abu Musab al-Zaqawi, a Jordanian extremist with links to al-Qaeda, was the masked man who beheaded Mr Berg in a murder recorded and broadcast over the Internet.
Yesterday, however, the trail appeared to lead instead to Saddam's hometown of Tikrit. Iraqi officials said the men had been arrested in Salaheddin province, which includes Tikrit, shortly after Mr Berg's body was dumped last week near a Baghdad flyover.
Al-Sabawi was not among those arrested, the Iraqi official said. Police intelligence agents seized the men as they arrived to "plot other major operations", the officer told the Associated Press, without elaborating.
The Iraqi police appear to have done a poor job of protecting their informant, who was killed by unidentified gunmen the following day, the official admitted. Police seized weapons and explosives at the scene. Last night the suspects were believed to be still in Iraqi hands.
The case is still extremely sensitive, with news of the apparent arrests leaking after days of rumours.
The mystery surrounding Mr Berg's kidnapping deepened after US officials confirmed that the FBI had questioned the contractor three times after his arrest in the northern city of Mosul.
US occupation authorities have denied he was ever in American custody during his two weeks in detention there. But this week Mr Berg's parents released an e-mail from an American diplomat which confirmed that he had been held by the US military and was "safe".
Meanwhile, in Kerbala, US aircraft pounded Shia insurgents whose demands for Americans to go are gaining support among Iraqis frustrated with the occupation.
Sadr, who is holed up in the holy city of Najaf, managed to slip out to deliver a defiant sermon in nearby Kufa. "Don't let my death end your resistance. Continue and God will give you victory," he told worshippers at a mosque.
Spain yesterday withdrew the last of its troops, which once numbered 1,400. They crossed into Kuwait yesterday and would fly to Spain by Monday, the Defence Ministry said.