US President George W. Bush flashed a broad smile, raised his eyebrows, and gave a big "thumbs-up" sign at shouted questions about Aziz's capture from reporters at the White House.

"We can confirm that we have him," Lieutenant-Commander Charles Owens said at the war command headquarters in As-Saliyah, Qatar.

His capture would show Iraqis that Saddam's regime was truly over, dispelling any lingering fear that the Baathist were only waiting in the wings to make a comeback, another official said in Washington.

"It's very possible he may know the status of Saddam and other regime officials, potentially the location of other regime officials, and where they may be hiding," said the official, who asked not to be identified.

Saddam, who was twice targeted by US air strikes, remains unaccounted for. British Defence Minister Geoffrey Hoon said Wednesday he believed Saddam is alive and inside Iraq. The Iraqi opposition has said the same.

The US Central Command provided no details on his capture.

US television reports said he surrendered to US forces in Baghdad. The US official said he was in the custody of US forces in Baghdad.

Aziz, number 43 on the list of 55 most wanted Iraqi officials, was one of the best known figures in the Iraqi regime even though he was not considered a member of Saddam's innermost circle.

Urbane, fluent in English and the most senior Christian in the government, he played a leading role in making Iraq's case at the United Nations and other international arenas in the 12 years since the 1991 Gulf War.

"He wasn't a member of the inner cicle. He was not a Tikriti. He was not a Muslim. He was a Christian," said the official.

But, he added, "He for many years was the face and voice of Iraq. So it is a significant development."

Despite his avuncular image, Aziz was one of the regime's few long-term survivors.

Appointed foreign minister in 1983 and largely credited with securing Western support for Iraq against Iran, notably from France, he is believed to have wielded little real power of decision-making.

His birth in Mosul in 1936 of an Assyrian Christian family put him outside the small circle of Saddam's Sunni Moslem cronies from Tikrit.

But Saddam had known him since the 1950s and they were comrades in the Baath party from the early clandestine days.

Aziz was already in the command structure in 1963, in charge of propaganda, five years before the Baathists seized power.

He ran the party newspaper Ath-Thawra and then in the mid 1970s became information minister.

He survived an apparent assassination attempt by grenade at Baghdad university in 1980 which left several dead. He escaped with a broken arm and a few cuts.

His arrest brought to 12 the number of former top Iraqi officials to be reeled in by a US-led dragnet.

He was the eight of spades in a US deck of playing cards with the faces of Iraqi officials most wanted by the United States.

His capture came a day after the commander of the Iraqi air defense force, the director of military intelligence and the minister of trade were taken into custody.

SPACE.WIRE