Mohammed Mohsen Zubeidi, who announced he has been picked by local leaders to head an interim administration, said other political prisoners were found elsewhere but did not give any details.

He told reporters that 25 prisoners were found in underground cells run by the intelligence and security branch of Saddam Hussein's regime in the suburb of Qazimiya. There was no word on their condition.

"We were able to locate them thanks to cooperation with the US army which has sophisticated devices for seeing underground," Zubeidi told a news conference in the Palestine Hotel.

"We thank the United States because they have opened for us prisons, the doors of which we didn't even know, and they have located people underground."

US officials were not immediately available for comment.

Zubeidi said US forces and the Iraqi interim administration were also working together to locate US, British and Kuwaiti soldiers taken prisoner of war by Saddam's troops.

In October, Saddam announced a general amnesty for all prisoners to mark his new seven-year mandate as president following a referendum in which he won 100 percent of the vote.

SPACE.WIRE