American forces captured a bearded Saddam Hussein as he hid in a dirt hole under a farmhouse near his hometown of Tikrit, ending one of the most intensive manhunts in history. The arrest, eight months after the fall of Baghdad, was carried out without a shot fired.

　　"Ladies and gentlemen, we got him," US administrator L. Paul Bremer told reporters in Baghdad yesterday.

　　Saddam was captured at 8:30 pm on Saturday in a specially prepared "spider hole" in a house in Adwar, a town 16 kilometers from Tikrit, said Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the top US military commander in Iraq. The hole was about two meters deep, with enough space to lie down, camouflaged with bricks and dirt and supplied with an air vent to allow long periods inside.

　　A US defense official said Saddam admitted his identity when captured.

　　Sanchez, who saw Saddam overnight, said the deposed leader "has been cooperative and is talkative." He said Saddam is "a tired man, a man resigned to his fate."

　　In the Iraqi capital, radio stations played celebratory music, residents fired small arms in the air in celebration and passengers on buses and trucks shouted, "They got Saddam! They got Saddam!"

　　Eager to give Iraqis evidence that the elusive former Iraqi leader had indeed been captured, Sanchez played a video at the news conference showing the 66-year-old Saddam in custody.

　　Saddam, with a thick, graying beard and bushy, disheveled hair, was seen as doctor examined him, holding his mouth open with a tongue depressor, apparently to get a DNA sample.

　　Then the video showed a picture of Saddam after he was shaved, juxtaposed for comparison with an old photo of the former Iraqi leader while in power.

　　US officials went to great length to keep it quiet until medical tests confirmed Saddam's identity.

　　Washington hopes Saddam's capture will help break the organized Iraq resistance that has killed more than 190 American soldiers since US President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1 and has set back efforts at reconstruction. US commanders have said that while in hiding Saddam played some role in the guerrilla campaign blamed on his followers.

　　In the latest attack, a suspected suicide bomber detonated explosives in a car outside a police station yesterday morning west of Baghdad, killing at least 17 people and wounding 33 more, the US military said.

　　Saddam was being held at an undisclosed location, and US authorities have not yet determined whether to hand him over to the Iraqis for trial, Sanchez said. Iraqi officials want him to stand trial before a war crimes tribunal created last week.

　　Ahmad Chalabi, a member of Iraq's Governing Council, said yesterday that Saddam will be put on trial.

　　"Saddam will stand a public trial so that the Iraqi people will know his crimes," Chalabi said.

　　In Tikrit, US soldiers lit up cigars after hearing the news of Saddam's capture.

　　Some 600 troops from the 4th Infantry Division along with Special Forces captured Saddam, the US military said. There were no shots fired or injuries in the raid, called "Operation Red Dawn," Sanchez said.

　　Two men "affiliated with Saddam Hussein" were detained with him, and soldiers confiscated two Kalashnikov rifles, a pistol, a taxi and US$750,000 in US$100 bills, Sanchez said.