A close relative said the daughters, Raghad and Rana, and their children flew in from Syria, where they had fled two weeks after the fall of Baghdad.

King Abdullah II has agreed to host them "for humanitarian reasons and because of the difficult situation in their country," the official from the royal palace said, requesting anonymity.

"We do not know how long they will stay in Jordan. The fact is that they benefit from Jordanian protection as long as they are in the country," he added.

Raghad and Rana were married respectively to Hussein Kamel Hassan and his brother Saddam Kamel Hassan, who both defected to Jordan in 1995 with their wives and a total of seven children.

The families returned to Iraq in February 1996, but the two men, their brother and a sister, as well as other family members, were assassinated by Saddam's regime after being accused of treason.

Raghad and Rana had since been living out of the public eye with their mother, Sajida, in Iraq, apparently under close watch.

Saddam, who is being hunted by coalition forces, has a third daughter Hala, whose husband was arrested by US forces following the fall of Baghdad on April 9.

A close relative who requested anonymity Thursday told AFP in Amman that Raghad and Rana and their nine children arrived on board a Jordanian plane from Syria.

Raghad yesterday accused his aides of "betraying" the deposed Iraqi president and causing the fall of Baghdad to US-led forces in April.

"The main betrayal came from the people whom he trusted fully... (In fact) they betrayed their country before betraying Saddam Hussein," she told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite news channel from Amman.

Raghad, termed the fall of Baghdad on April 9 "a great shock."

Describing the hours leading up to the abrupt end of her father's 24-year rule, Raghad said she spent them in Baghdad's posh Mansur district with Rana and their children, knowing it was "all over."