Marine Combat Headquarters, Iraq ? In spite of top-level assertions that Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein’s cousin known as “Chemical Ali,” was killed in a weekend bombing raid in Basra, officers here were unwilling Monday to declare him dead just yet.

Al-Majid is the commander of all military forces in southern Iraq, and he is presumed to have Saddam’s authority to launch a chemical attack on coalition forces.

His death is considered so important to the war that U.S. and British forces have agreed that if it is confirmed it will be officially announced jointly by “national authorities” in Washington and London. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington on Monday that “we believe that the reign of terror of Chemical Ali has come to an end.” British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon in London was more reserved: “We have some strong indications that he was killed in the raid.”

But officers here were quick to note that al-Majid has been reported dead previously.

The most recent word of his death stems from a pre-dawn attack Saturday by two U.S. Air Force F-16s with six 500-pound laser-guided bombs on a building in the southern city of Basra.

In the residence at the time of the attack were believed to be Ali, an army general from the southern military district which Al-Majid commands and two colonels possibly related to Saddam, Sewall said.

“All I say is that we struck a location where he was, and we killed some people,” said Col. Larry Brown, IMEF’s operations chief.

Coalition forces have tried to kill Chemical Ali on at least three earlier occasions, starting with the 40-plus cruise missiles fired at Baghdad on the day the war started and, two days later, an air strike on his alleged home in the southeastern city of Amara.

After the Amara strike, one officer at the IMEF combat operations center picked up a microphone and gleefully announced to the 50-plus center staffers there that al-Majid was dead.

“Chemical Ali is no longer breathing air,” the officer said.

But officers at headquarters are being less certain this time.

“Until they do the DNA, I am not going to speculate. This guy has been like Freddy Krueger,” Brown said. “We’ve killed him four or five times.”