The US military denied reports that Izzat Ibrahim Al Douri had been captured in a raid yesterday. However, Hawija police chief Awad Al Obeidi said Al Douri's private secretary Saad Mohammed Al Douri, had been detained. Twenty-seven suspected fighters were caught when up to 1,000 soldiers stormed into the small town of Hawija near the northern city of Kirkuk before dawn, but the man with a 10 million US dollar price on his head wasn't one of them. "Ibrahim was definitely not captured in today's mission," said Major Doug Vincent, during the raid. Earlier, sources in Iraq's Governing Council had said Ibrahim had been either seized or killed. A US soldier was killed by a roadside bomb near the tense town of Samarra yesterday, the 189th to die in fighting since President George W Bush declared major combat over on May 1. Kirkuk's police chief, speaking as the Hawija raid went on late into the day, had not given up hope Ibrahim had been found. "The possibility we have Izzat Ibrahim is more than 80 per cent, but I can't say for sure whether he has been killed or captured yet," Torhan Abulrahman said. US forces and Iraqi police had mounted the joint sweep after information from one of Ibrahim's wives, captured earlier this month, suggested he was in the area. Ibrahim's detention would have been a major coup for the US-led coalition. He is sixth on the US list of top Iraqi fugitives, and all in the top five except for Saddam have been killed or captured. A reward of 25m US dollars is still on offer for information leading to the capture or death of Saddam. Hawija was full of anti-US and pro-Saddam graffiti and posters, with slogans like "Saddam is the pride of the Arabs", "Death to the agents", and "Don't be armour for the Americans". Meanwhile, members of the Governing Council have quietly distanced themselves from a top Shiite cleric's call for direct elections before the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis by July next year. The members believe the problems of running a proper election in the present security situation would delay the formal handover of sovereignty. Washington agreed on a plan with the council last month for regional caucuses to pick a transitional assembly, which will select a sovereign government to oversee the drafting of a constitution and elections. The plan hit a snag last week when Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani - the most influential religious authority for Shi'ites said it was not democratic enough, reiterating an earlier stipulation that the constitution's architects be directly elected, not appointed. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Iraqi Vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri poses with a portrait of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in this Sept. 3, 2002 file photo. ( AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)