Saddam hunt to start in earnest

By Frank Gardner BBC security correspondent

The hunt for Saddam Hussein is about to intensify.

Other top Iraqis have surrendered or been captured

More than two months after the fall of Baghdad, those searching for him are about to be joined by men from the Pentagon's Iraq Survey Group.

This 1,400-strong task force will be focusing on the search for missing weapons and for the elusive senior members of Saddam's regime but where is Saddam Hussein, if indeed he is still alive?

Western intelligence sources say they are working on the assumption the Iraqi leader survived the war and is now on the run somewhere inside Iraq.

The Arab world's most familiar figure has simply disappeared

Opinions vary as to whether he could be hiding in his hometown of Tikrit, in a safe house in Baghdad or even living like a nomadic Bedouin out in the desert.

This week the head of the Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi, was quoted as saying Saddam was moving in an arc around the River Tigris.

His pursuers have a formidable array of equipment at their disposal.

They are using satellite imagery, intercepted phone calls and snippets of intelligence from sources on the ground.

Yet despite all of this and a host of enemies hungry for revenge, the Arab world's most familiar figure has simply disappeared.