Will Saddam Crack?

By Hassan Fattah

Nearly a month after being extracted from his hole, Saddam Hussein remains defiant and uncooperative, according to Iraqi sources. But papers recovered from a briefcase he rather carelessly carried around have provided the Coalition Provisional Authority with a wealth of intelligence. The documents have helped expose the identities of several key resistance leaders, a senior Iraqi source tells TIME. And clues culled from the papers led U.S. forces last week to an alleged ring of Islamic terrorists operating out of the Sunni mosque Ibn Taimiya in Baghdad. The raid netted at least 32 suspected militants, including 26 who were wanted by the coalition. U.S. forces also detained the mosque's imam, Mahdi al-Sumaydah, who is believed to be a prominent resistance leader. "This was a major operations center for attacks against Iraqis and the coalition," says a well-informed Iraqi source. "We've been working on this for three weeks, with surveillance from the inside."

Yet Saddam's capture has not ended suicide bombings or other terrorist attacks. The bombing of a New Year's Eve party in Baghdad, for instance, killed eight and left 35 injured. A senior Iraqi source tells TIME that the suicide bombings appear to be carried out by foreigners, not by Saddam loyalists. From the remains of such bombers, the source says, authorities have determined that most were Yemeni, some were Syrian, and a few Saudi Arabian.

As for Saddam, his defiance may have limits. "I think he's up for a deal," says Muwaffak Rubaiye, who with three other members of the Iraqi Governing Council met with Saddam soon after he was nabbed. Rubaiye thinks the former Iraqi dictator would tell all about his missing unconventional weapons if he were accorded prisoner-of-war status, which would protect him from the death penalty. "He even learned words of English, like rubbish and surrender," says Rubaiye. "He was clearly preparing himself for surrender."

--By Hassan Fattah