Former Iraqi Vice President Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri was arrested Sunday in northern Iraq, State Minister for Provinces Affairs Wael Abdul Latief told the Dubai-based al-Arabiya television.

"Iraq's national guardsmen backed by US troops have captured al-Douri in Tikrit area depending on reliable intelligence," Abdul Latief said.

During the capture operation, about 70 of al-Douri's supporters were killed and 80 others arrested, the minister said.

Abdul Latief confirmed that a blood test was being conducted now for al-Douri.

He said about 150 militants tried to rescue al-Douri after he was captured, but their attempt ended in vain.

Al-Douri was treated in a clinic near Tikrit, some 180 km north of Baghdad and the hometown of former president Saddam Hussein, Abdul Latief said.

Al-Douri ranked the sixth in a deck of cards of most-wanted figures issued by the United States following the US-led invasion of Iraq in spring 2003.

With a 10 million-US dollar bounty on his head, al-Douri was accused by the United States of financing insurgency in the war-ravaged country.

The 62-year-old Al-Douri, Saddam's right-hand man and vice chairman in the Baath Party's Revolutionary Command Council, was the highest-ranking figure still at large prior to his capture.

Relationship between Saddam and al-Douri went back to nearly four decades, when the two men were believed to be leading plotters of the 1968 coup which sent the Baath party to power in Iraq.

Ever since, al-Douri worked as one of Saddam's top aides and most trusted confidant.

His daughter was briefly married to Saddam's elder son Uday, who was killed by US forces in July last year.

(Xinhua News Agency September 6, 2004)