A half-brother and former adviser to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has been captured in Iraq.

Sources in the interim government said on Sunday that an official announce-ment would be made soon on the capture of Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hasan al-Tikriti but few details were provided immediately.

"Sabawi is captured, he's a big catch," one official in the government said.

Several months ago the interim government said al-Tikriti was one of at least two former Baath Party officials directing ongoing anti-US attacks from Syria.

Al-Takriti's brothers, Watban and Barzan, are already in custody at a US military-run facility on the outskirts of Baghdad and are due to be tried in coming months.

The arrest means only about 10 people on a Washington's most-wanted, including Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, remain at large.

Civilians killed

Meanwhile, a bomb exploded at a local government building just outside the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Sunday, killing two people and injuring three, witnesses and hospital officials said.

They said one of the dead was an Iraqi security guard and the other a labourer. The three injured in the bombing in a town just south of Mosul were Iraqi security guards.

Separately, a US Marine was killed on an operation south of Baghdad in a volatile area dubbed the Triangle of Death, the US military said on Sunday.

The attack occurred on Saturday while the unit the Marine was assigned to was conducting "security and stability operations" in Babil province, just south of the capital, a statement said. No other details were given.

PHOTO CAPTION

Sabawi Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, half brother and a former advisor to Saddam Hussein. (REUTERS)