Confusion over ousted Iraqi deputy PM Tariq Aziz's Death
Pakistan Times Monitoring Report

BAGHDAD (Iraq): An Arab TV channel has claimed that the former Iraqi deputy prime minister and former foreign minister Tariq Aziz has died under U.S. custody however US officials in Baghdad have contradicted these reports and have said that Tariq Aziz is still alive.

Arab TV while quoting the International Red Cross said that relatives of Tariq Aziz who was suffering from different diseases, said that the U.S. army informed them that the condition of Tariq Aziz is not stable.

Arab TV has claimed that Vatican City sources have confirmed the death of Tariq Aziz however US army spokesman in Baghdad Berry Johnson has termed this report by Arab TV as false. Johnson said “Tariq Aziz is in our custody and he is alive”.

Tareq Aziz son denies father's Death

And in Rome, a son of Iraq's former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz under Saddam Hussein told a contact Saturday his father was alive, denying television reports of his death, the Italian news agency Ansa said.

The son, Ziad, confirmed to a French monk and friend of the family, Jean Marie Benjamin, in Amman that his father was still alive, Ansa added.

Benjmain is understood to have good contacts with the family who are Iraqi Christians. Benjamin was in Amman with Ziad and his family when the report of the death appeared.

Contacted by the news agency in Amman, Benjamin said: "Ziad personally got in touch with Baghdad where the news of his father's death was denied."

Benjamin represents a religious foundation at Assisi in Italy. He organised a trip by Tareq Aziz to Rome in 2003, when Aziz was received by Pope John Paul II, on the eve of the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Rumsfeld for more troops in Iraq

Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gathered 18 coalition defense ministers on this aircraft carrier in the Gulf Saturday to discuss strategy in Iraq and reassure them that progress is being made against insurgents.

In the cramped "war room" of the Kennedy, the ministers heard General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, in a video teleconference from Baghdad lay out his plan for retaking control of Iraq's violence-torn provinces.

"Casey gave a brief on the the state of play in Iraq, the way forward and where we are," said Larry DiRita, a Pentagon spokesman who attended most of the briefing.

The general told the ministers that 145,000 Iraqi security forces will be "fully manned, trained and equipped" before the elections, said another senior defense official who also attended.

According to that official, Casey said the violence now centered on four of Iraq's 18 provinces, including Baghdad and Al-Anbar, a province west of Baghdad where insugents have gained control over a number of towns and cities.

In the other 14 provinces, attacks have subsided to four a day, the official cited Casey as saying.

The New York Times reported this week that Casey's plan identifies 20 to 30 towns as controlled by insurgents or vulnerable, and establishes metrics to judge when force should be used to bring them under the government's control.●