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Iraq offers $10 million for former Saddam official

Bombs kill at least 23 in several Iraqi cities

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Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri is the highest-ranking official from the Saddam Hussein regime still at large.

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Iraqi government is offering a $10 million reward for the capture of the highest-ranking Iraqi official still at large, according to the prime minister's office.

Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri was deputy commander of armed forces under Saddam Hussein.

He is No. 6 on the U.S. military's list of 55 most-wanted Iraqi officials, which describes him as vice chairman of Saddam's Revolutionary Command Council and a part of Saddam's inner circle.

Al-Duri, a longtime Baath party leader, was instrumental in helping Saddam come to power in a 1968 coup.

U.S. officials have said he was also involved in Saddam's decision to use chemical weapons against Kurds in northern Iraq in 1988. That attack killed an estimated 5,000 people and left 10,000 severely injured.

The U.S. military has detained some of his family members in the past, as well as the son of his doctor, to place pressure on al-Duri, who reportedly has leukemia, to turn himself in.

The U.S. military also offered a $10 million reward for the capture of al-Duri in November 2003.

Bombs target Iraqi forces

Car bombs in several areas killed at least 23 people Monday, most of them Iraqi police and security forces. A U.S. soldier also died, authorities said.

In Irbil, a suicide car bomb inside a police compound killed at least 12 people and wounded 103, all of them police employees, a spokesman for the city's regional ministry of interior said.

The bombing took place just before 8 a.m. (midnight ET) Monday in the northern Iraqi city.

In Baghdad, five Iraqi police and security forces officers were killed when a car bomb exploded near a police station, the U.S. military said.

The bomb detonated at the Baya police station, just west of Doura, about 5:20 a.m. (9:20 p.m. ET Sunday), authorities said.

The incident began when a Task Force Baghdad patrol exchanged gunfire with suspected insurgents near the station.

When an Iraqi police patrol and an Iraqi security forces unit responded, the car bomb exploded. Fifteen security forces members were wounded and one police officer was missing, the military said. No U.S. casualties were reported.

In northern Iraq, a suicide car bomb near an Iraqi army convoy killed an Iraqi army officer and three other soldiers, according to Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin, the army's Kirkuk commander. Four people were wounded in the attack, one of them a soldier.

Amin said the attack took place about 6:45 p.m. (10:45 a.m. ET) near an Iraqi army checkpoint between Tuz Khurmatu and Tikrit.

Also Monday, a suicide car bomber killed one civilian and wounded two others near an Iraqi police checkpoint on the road to Baghdad International Airport.

The U.S. soldier died when a car bomb detonated near a patrol northeast of Tal Afar in restive Nineveh province, military officials said.

The 1st Corps Support Command soldier died of wounds sustained in the bombing, authorities said.

The number of American troops killed in the Iraq war is 1,720, according to U.S. military reports. Ten soldiers have died in Tal Afar this year.

Meanwhile, police believe two people found shot to death late Sunday were among six Iraqi civilians kidnapped earlier in the day, a spokesman in Hilla said.

Gunmen attacked two vehicles carrying civilians in Latifiya, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Baghdad, about 9 p.m. Sunday (1 p.m. ET). The fate of the other four is unknown, police said.

Marines begin pulling from Karabila

U.S. Marines ended a four-day operation Monday in Iraq's northwestern Anbar province and began pulling out of the city of Karabila near the Syrian border.

The operation was aimed at securing parts of the city where they believed insurgents were hiding. Marine commanders said they believed the city was a transit point for foreign fighters crossing into Iraq.

Earlier, Marines taking part in the operation, dubbed "Spear," destroyed what they said was a major car bomb factory.

The Marines fired tank rounds at the complex and then dropped a 500-pound bomb on it, causing massive secondary explosions when cars rigged with bombs exploded.

Military officials said there were a dozen cars inside, but the Marines had not determined how many of them had been equipped with bombs.

Bush cites 'progress'

President Bush said Monday the United States is "making progress" toward its goals in Iraq.

Bush was asked whether he agreed with Vice President Dick Cheney's statement -- made in a CNN interview in May -- that Iraq was "in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." He did not directly respond to the question.

"The report from the field is that while it's tough, more and more Iraqis are becoming battle-hardened and trained to defend themselves," Bush told reporters at an appearance with European Union leaders at the White House.

"That's exactly the strategy that's going to work -- and it is going to work. And we will complete this mission for the sake of world peace."

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Americans should be told that the war there will last at least "a couple more years." (Full story)

CNN's Jane Arraf, Caroline Faraj and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

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