Ali Hassan al-Majid, who was first thought killed on 5 April by a coalition bomb at his home in Al-Basrah, was said by the Pentagon on 21 August to be in U.S. custody. No details on when or where he was detained were available. Al-Majid was the first cousin of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and one of Hussein's most trusted men as he spent much of his career carrying out atrocities against Iraqis in the name of the Hussein regime.
Here is a brief list of some of al-Majid's more notorious atrocities:
In 1983, al-Majid led the campaign that destroyed the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, following an assassination attempt on President Hussein. It was believed that the assassins came from Dujail.
From 1987-89, al-Majid served as secretary-general of the northern bureau of the Ba'ath Party. During his posting in northern Iraq, al-Majid was given extraordinary powers over all other state, party, military, and security agencies, including the Iraqi Army and Air Force, the Republican Guard, the General Military Intelligence Directorate, the General Security Directorate, and the National Defense Battalions, among others.
What began as arbitrary arrests and detentions against Kurds in the north, led to the forced resettlement and destruction of approximately 2,000 Kurdish and 150 Assyrian villages in 1987-88.
The Anfal campaign, as it became known, "resulted in the murder and "disappearance" of more than 100,000 civilians (according to figures by Human Rights Watch), the use of chemical weapons against civilians in tens of villages, and the systematic destruction of property and agricultural land. During the campaign, some 280 villages were gassed, and the campaign's brutality led to al-Majid being dubbed "Chemical Ali" (http://www.hrw.org/).
The intensity of Al-Majid's brutality is best summarized in his own words. In a 1988 audiotape of a meeting of Iraqi officials that was published by Human Rights Watch, al-Majid said of the Kurds, "I will not attack them with chemicals just one day, but I will continue to attack them with chemicals for 15 days." Al-Majid threatened to "kill them all" in the audiotape, telling his colleagues: "Who is going to say anything? The international community?"
In August-November 1990, al-Majid served as "governor" of occupied Kuwait, which had been dubbed "Iraq's 19th governorate" by Hussein following Iraq's August 1990 invasion of its southern neighbor. During this time, he ordered the "transfer" of civilians from Kuwait in 1990.
He is also responsible for brutally suppressing an Iraqi Shi'ite uprising in southern Iraq in 1991. In addition, he led a campaign against Iraq's Marsh Arab population in the 1990s, which included the forced displacement, torture, "disappearances," "which reduced a community that once numbered over a quarter of a million people to less than 40,000 today," according to Human Rights Watch.
In March 1991, al-Majid was appointed interior minister. He also served as defense minister from 1991-95. In December 1998, he was appointed commander of the southern region (Iraq-Kuwait border) after Hussein divided the country into four regional military commands. Al-Majid immediately executed from six to 12 officers under his command. In January 2003, he traveled outside Iraq in an official capacity. His meetings with government leaders in Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, and Syria marked the first time since 1988 that al-Majid had traveled on official business for Hussein.
In March 2003, al-Majid was reappointed commander of the southern region in Iraq. He was believed to be 62 years old.