US troops have taken Saddam Hussein's finance minister into custody in Baghdad after he was captured by Iraqi police, the US military said on Saturday.

Hikmat Ibrahim al-Azzawi was number 45 on a list of 55 Saddam supporters most wanted by the United States and was also a deputy prime minister.

Azzawi was the eight of diamonds in a deck of cards issued to US troops hunting the overthrown Iraqi administration.

"He was captured by Iraqi police in Baghdad and turned over to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force," Major Randi Steffy said at the Central Command in Qatar.

She added that an "international terrorist" belonging to the Palestinian Abu Nidal organisation surrendered to the Marines in Baghdad on Friday. She named him as Khala Khadr al-Salahat.

It was not immediately clear what status Salahat had in the organisation.

Its leader, Abu Nidal, died in Baghdad last August. Iraqi officials said he committed suicide but Abu Nidal's organisation, also known as the Fatah Revolutionary Council, said he was murdered.

The US military announced the latest detentions a day after US Central Command said Iraqi Kurds had captured and handed over Samir Abul Aziz al-Najim, a senior Baghdad official of Saddam's Baath Party, near Mosul in northern Iraq.