CAIRO — Omar Suleiman, the once-powerful head of Egypt’s intelligence service who represented the old government’s last attempt to hold on to power, died on Thursday at an American hospital, according to the state-owned Middle East News Agency. He was 76.

There had been no public reports that Mr. Suleiman was ailing or that he had gone to the United States for medical care, so the news of his death came as a surprise. Reuters said he died suddenly while undergoing a medical examination. Al Ahram, the state-owned newspaper in Egypt, said he died at a hospital in Cleveland. No cause was given.

That he died in the United States was, to his Egyptian critics, emblematic of his close ties with the C.I.A., which he had helped as it established the practice of extraordinary rendition: sending terrorism suspects to foreign countries to be interrogated and, its critics say, tortured.

When the C.I.A. asked Mr. Suleiman if he could provide a DNA sample from a brother of the Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, Mr. Suleiman offered to send the agency the brother’s entire arm, according to Ron Suskind, who has written extensively about antiterrorism efforts.