Former Iraqi Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, is seen during a cermony in Baghdad in this Dec. 1, 2002, file photo. Al-Douri, Saddam Hussein's former second-in-command, was arrested in northern Iraq, Saleh Sarhan, an Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman told al-Hurra television.(AP)

Iraqi authorities claimed on Sunday to have captured Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the most wanted member of Saddam Hussein's ousted dictatorship, but there was confusion over the report, as the Iraqi defense minister said word of his arrest was "baseless ."

There have been incorrect reports of al-Douri's arrest in the past as U.S. and Iraqi forces hunt for the man who was once one of Saddam's most senior deputies. Sunday's report centered on a raid near al-Douri's hometown of Adwar, north of Baghdad.

Iraq's top information official said al-Douri was seized while receiving medical treatment at a clinic near Adwar and that DNA tests were underway to confirm his identity. Al-Douri reportedly suffers from leukemia , and needs blood transfusions.

"We are sure he is Izzat Ibrahim," information official Ibrahim Janabi said. "He was arrested in a clinic in Makhoul near Tikrit and Adwar and 60 percent of the DNA test has finished."

Later, however, the Iraqi defense minister, Hazem Shaalan, said in an interview with Lebanon's Al Hayat-LBC television that reports that Izzat Ibrahim was captured were "baseless."

"We don't have any information on this subject or on the reports that allegedly came out from the defense ministry," he said.

"They are baseless. There are search operations by the national guards troops and multinational troops going on during which some terrorist positions were shelled. There were rumors that Izzat al-Douri or someone who resembles him were in that position but we don't have any information on Izzat specifically," he said.

U.S. Maj. Neal O'Brien of the Tikrit-based 1st Infantry Division said he could not confirm the report and U.S.-led forces issued a statement saying he was not in U.S. custody. A senior U.S. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Americans had no information to indicate that al-Douri had been arrested.

Iraqi Minister of State Qassim Dawoud also claimed that al-Douri was arrested and said 150 men defending him also were detained.

Meanwhile, a mortar barrage Sunday evening hit a U.S. base on the western edge of Baghdad, killing two U.S. soldiers and wounding 16 others, one critically, Maj. Richard Spiegel of the Army's 13th Corps Support Command said.

The soldiers killed and wounded all belonged to the 13th Corps Support, which oversees distribution of fuel, food and water to U.S. forces. As of Friday, 976 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to the Defense Department.

Al-Douri, once the vice chairman of the Baath Party's Revolutionary Command Council, is the most prominent member of Saddam's inner circle who had not been captured or killed. U.S. military officials believe he played an organizing role in the 16-month-old insurgency.

He is No. 6 on the U.S. military's list of 55 most-wanted figures from Saddam's regime - the king of clubs in the deck of cards - and U.S. forces have offered a $10 million bounty for his arrest. Forty-four of the people on the list already have been killed or captured.

(Agencies)

baseless : without a basis in reason or fact（无根据的）

leukemia : malignant neoplasm of blood-forming tissues（白血病）

bounty: payment or reward (especially from a government) for acts such as catching criminals or killing predatory animals or enlisting in the military（奖金）