Iraq today named Saddam Hussein's eldest daughter and first wife on a most-wanted list along with top Baathists and al Qaeda's new leader in Iraq, a day after the bloodiest bombing in three months killed over 60.
The remains of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US air strike last month, have been buried in Iraq in a secret grave after the US military handed over the body to the Iraqi government, Iraqi officials and the US military said.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had called on the US military to release the body of Jordanian Zarqawi to his family in a Web site audio tape on Friday and said Jordan's King Abdullah should allow him to be buried in his home town, Zarqa.
Iraqi, US and Jordanian authorities have been anxious, however, that the tomb of a man hailed by bin Laden as a "lion of Jihad" not become a place of pilgrimage for militants. National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie announced the list of 41 "most wanted" a day after a car bomb devastated a market in a Shia district of Baghdad in the deadliest attack since a Shia-led unity government was formed six weeks ago.
The blast in the Shia militia stronghold of Sadr City drew angry responses from radical Shias against Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's national reconciliation plan and his efforts to reach out to the once-dominant Sunni minority.
The carnage, by far the worst since Zarqawi was killed on June 7th, has raised the prospect of sectarian civil war.
The list, which offers a $10 million bounty for former Saddam deputy Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, accuses Saddam's daughter, Raghd, and her mother of using millions stolen by the former Iraqi leader to finance the Sunni insurgency. Raghd has taken a leading role in organising her father's legal defence in his trial for crimes against humanity.
Aged about 40, she lives in Jordan having been granted asylum there, along with her sister Rana and their children, in 2003. Raghd and Rana's husbands, both brothers and themselves related to Saddam, were killed by fellow tribesmen on returning to Iraq in 1996 after having defected and betrayed Saddam.
His first wife Sajida, mother of Raghd, is also on the list, which includes the new head of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri. The Iraqi government also offered a $50,000 reward for Masri - far less than the $5 million bounty the United States placed on the man named to succeed Zarqawi.