One hundred dead in Hilla and counting …

Juan Cole says:

The Syrians found Saddam Hussein’s half-brother in Beirut and handed him over to the US. (If there is an Arab city where US intelligence ought to have been able to find a high Iraqi official by itself without help from Syria, it should have been Beirut).

but he does not provide a link and I fail to find a source in the international press for this. Can anyone find a detailed report on this?

WaPo says:

A half brother of Saddam Hussein who allegedly helped direct the violent insurgency in Iraq has been captured and will be turned over to the Iraqi government, a U.S. military spokesman said Sunday.
…
Iraqi officials told the Associated Press that Syrian officials had captured Hassan in northeastern Syria and handed him over to them. The officials said Hassan and 29 other members of Iraq’s Baath Party were seized in Hasakah, about 30 miles from the Iraqi border, and turned over to Iraqi authorities.

Catched in northern Syria, turned over to Iraqi authorities, but is in American custody?

NYT writes:

Syrian officials in Damascus confirmed the transfer, and said the half-brother, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti, …, was one of a group of officials from the former Iraqi government who were arrested in Syria and delivered into Iraqi custody. An Associated Press report, quoting unidentified Iraqi officials, said there were 30 men in the group.

…

Last month, a Bush administration official told a reporter that Syria had captured a high-level Baathist figure, whose detention was leading to the arrests of others inside Syria, and that those captured were in Syrian custody, with an understanding between Syria and the United States not to disclose what was going on.

Maybe catched months ago with US knowledge?

Confusing propaganda mix –  except for one point. 

Syria must immediately contract some profiessional public relations people. Any positive news about Syria is drowned and all negative news is exaggerated even in the most sympathetic media.