Dubai: In the most significant catch so far, one of the best known members of Saddam Hussein's regime and former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz surrendered before the US forces and was being questioned on the whereabouts of the ousted Iraqi dictator and other top Baath party leaders.

Details are scarce on how 67-year-old Aziz went into US custody, although Lt Yvonne Lukson of Central Command said he surrendered to coalition forces overnight.

UN confirmed reports said that Aziz, who was Iraq's chief spokesman to the West, surrendered to US custody in Baghdad after making several inquiries through intermediaries about his fate once in US hands.

Aziz, known for his silver mane, large-framed glasses and a taste for fine cigars, was detained at an undisclosed place and was a long- term confidant of Saddam Hussein and Americans were expecting that he would shed light on the whereabouts of the ousted President, his two sons and other top Iraqi leaders absconding for more than two weeks after the regime's fall.

Aziz, an English-speaking Chaldean Christian born near Mosul in 1936 and educated in Baghdad, toiled for years as Saddam's foreign minister and main representative abroad.

He served on the Revolutionary Command Council, the ultimate authority in Iraq, but was not part of the ruler's inner circle, composed of Saddam's family and Baath stalwarts who have stood beside him since the party took over here in 1968. He was No 43 on the US list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis.

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Aziz's surrender came as US authorities struggled to form an interim administration to replace the now-destroyed Baath Party regime that he represented so long.

Lt Gen (Retired) Jay M Garner, the US appointee for setting up the new administration, said he hoped to fill the country's power vacuum by early next week, chiefly by getting government ministries running again.

A self-styled mayor of Baghdad, however, went ahead with meetings and the appointment of city officials in defiance of a US order to stop his activities and cede to US occupation authorities.

Garner, head of the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, suggested he might force out the self-appointed Baghdad leader, Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi, unless he goes away voluntarily.

At the conclusion of his four-day tour to the country, Garner said his efforts were to allow Iraqis to take control of their country and eventually elect leaders to replace the destroyed government.

The only requirement, Garner said his organisation had of those new leaders was that they follow democratic processes.

Asked what he would do if Iraqis chose an Islamic state, as some groups from the country's 60 per cent Shiite Muslim majority have called for during recent demonstrations, Garner said he did not believe such a government was likely to meet the US condition.

"It's hard to think an Islamic republic could be a democratic process," he said.

Garner's boss, Defence Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld has also ruled out a clergy-run Islamic government for Iraq, saying, "If you're suggesting, how would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country, the answer is: That is not going to happen."

PTI