Saddam Hussein was last night reported to have placed his defence minister and close relative under house arrest in an extraordinary move apparently designed to prevent a coup. Iraqi opposition newspapers, citing sources in Baghdad, yesterday claimed that the head of the Iraqi military, Lieutenant-General Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Jabburi Tai, was now effectively a prisoner in his home in the capital.

The minister's apparent detention, also reported by Cairo-based al-Ahram newspaper, is surprising. He is not only a member of President Saddam's inner circle, but also a close relative by marriage. His daughter is married to Qusay Hussein, the dictator's 36-year-old younger son - considered by many as his heir apparent.

Reports of the general's arrest came amid signs of growing apprehension in Baghdad that the Iraqi army, including the elite Republican Guard, might desert in the event of an attack on Iraq.

Last night one independent source in Baghdad contacted by the Guardian confirmed that Gen Sultan was in custody. "He continues to attend cabinet meetings and appear on Iraqi TV, so that everything seems normal," said the source, a high-ranking official with connections to Iraq's ruling Ba'ath party. "But in reality his house and family are surrounded by Saddam's personal guards. They are there so he can't flee."

The source also claimed that several other high-ranking military and government officials had been arrested in the past few days. Any signs of dissent within Baghdad will be watched very closely by US and other intelligence services.

The fear that Iraq's 700,000-strong regular army might refuse to fight invading American troops has prompted President Saddam to take drastic measures. Last week he reportedly deployed a ruthless militia of Iranian fighters to several key cities to crush any popular uprisings. The Mojahedin-e-Khalq - a violent Iranian opposition group based in Iraq - was sent to defend urban areas, including Baghdad, Kurdish newspapers reported. MEK fighters have also arrived at the border with Kuwait and Syria.

The MEK remains fanatically loyal to the president and is likely to lead any street fighting against US troops, Iraqi opposition sources believe.

Mr Shaaban, who has intimate knowledge of the Iraqi regime's sanctions-busting operations, had been sent to Lebanon by Uday to buy jewellery, according to Iraqi exiles in Damascus and London. They say that members of Saddam's family have been converting dollars into valuables as the threat of war comes closer.

Mr Shaaban and his colleagues had arrived in Beirut after attending a football competition in Saudi Arabia in their guise as a sports delegation. He is understood to have been travelling with several million dollars in cash to buy diamonds and jewellery.

"Uday cannot put the family's black money in the bank and he does not want huge hoards of cash, so he converts it into portable valuables," said Mashaan Jebouri, the Syria-based leader of the Homeland party, an Iraqi opposition group.

Mr Shaaban has been involved at the highest level in the lucrative business dealings that Saddam has entrusted to Uday. He knows first-hand how the regime flouts United Nations sanctions to fund Saddam's illegal weapons programmes and amass fortunes for the country's ruling elite.

"He knows all the secrets about the smuggling operations, the illegal oil sales, the front companies, all the black money business," said Abbas al-Janabi, a former senior Baghdad official now based in London.

According to the reports from exile groups, Mr Shaaban had been waiting with colleagues in a Beirut hotel car park for a vehicle to drive them back to Baghdad on Monday. He reportedly told them he had left his mobile phone charger in his room, went back into the building and vanished through another exit.

The account of his disappearance was given by Mr Jebouri, who said that the details were secretly provided to him by another member of Mr Shaaban's group. Other Iraqi exile factions gave similar versions of events.

Mr Shaaban is understood to have feared punishment after mishandling a recent business deal for Uday, who is notoriously cruel. Afeel Tavra, another senior official on the Olympics committee, recently had his hands and legs broken after falling foul of him.

Nothing was heard of Mr Shaaban for several days before he emerged in Damascus last night, blaming the Iraqi opposition for "making up information about my disappearance and defection to a Western embassy in Beirut" and describing himself as "one of Saddam's soldiers".

There was no explanation, however, of his whereabouts in the meantime. Iraqi intelligence agents attached to the embassies in Beirut and Damascus had been ordered to search for him.

But there are also consequences of "stop the war".

If I took that advice, and did not insist on disarmament, yes, there would be no war. But there would still be Saddam. Many of the people marching will say they hate Saddam. But the consequences of taking their advice is that he stays in charge of Iraq, ruling the Iraqi people. A country that in 1978, the year before he seized power, was richer than Malaysia or Portugal. A country where today, 135 out of every 1000 Iraqi children die before the age of five - 70% of these deaths are from diarrhoea and respiratory infections that are easily preventable. Where almost a third of children born in the centre and south of Iraq have chronic malnutrition.

Where 60% of the people depend on Food Aid.

Where half the population of rural areas have no safe water.

Where every year and now, as we speak, tens of thousands of political prisoners languish in appalling conditions in Saddam's jails and are routinely executed.

Where in the past 15 years over 150,000 Shia Moslems in Southern Iraq and Moslem Kurds in Northern Iraq have been butchered; with up to four million Iraqis in exile round the world, including 350,000 now in Britain.

This isn't a regime with Weapons of Mass Destruction that is otherwise benign. This is a regime that contravenes every single principle or value anyone of our politics believes in.

FARC Terrorists Have Executed an American Civilian

FARC Terrorists in Columbia have kidnapped four Americans. Three of them are still being held and tortured. The fourth has been murdered.

‘The bodies of a fourth American and a Colombian soldier, identified today as army intelligence Sgt. Luis Alcides Cruz, were discovered near the wreckage with gunshot wounds. Colombian officials said the two were executed, and forensics experts from the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, the capital, began examining the bodies today to make a formal determination.’

As I had speculated, the plane did not simply "go down". It was shot down.

When is Dubya going to concentrate a meaningful portion of the War on Terror against the Terrorists in our own back yard? When will he at least send in Delta Force to free our people? That's what they're for, dammit.

Yankee Jihad