Iraq: US forces have taken into custody a US-educated microbiologist dubbed "Mrs Anthrax" who was active in germ warfare development under Saddam Hussein, defence officials said yesterday.
Ms Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash (49), the only woman included in the US military's list of 55 most-wanted Iraqi fugitives, was taken into custody in Baghdad on Sunday by US troops, said the defence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Ms Ammash was designated as No. 53 on the list, and was the five of hearts in the US military's deck of cards of wanted Iraqis. Eighteen of the 55 have been taken into custody, with another three dead, according to the Pentagon.
A US official said Ms Ammash may have potentially useful information.
"She has intimate knowledge of the workings of Iraq's BW [biological warfare\] programme and the nature and the extent of that programme, as well \ be in a position to know possible locations of where material or production facilities might be located," the official said.
US forces have found no evidence of the Iraqi chemical and biological weapons which US leaders cited as a key reason for the war which toppled Saddam's government.
Ms Ammash earned a doctorate in microbiology from the University of Missouri in 1983. She earned a master's degree from Texas Woman's University in 1979.
Ms Ammash's father was a leader of the 1968 Ba'ath Party revolution who served as an Iraqi minister and ambassador before being killed in the 1980s, reportedly on Saddam's order, the US official said.
Ms Ammash is a leading Iraqi microbial genetic engineer, and US officials believe she was instrumental in rebuilding aspects of Iraq's biological warfare production capability during the mid-1990s.
At that time, she served as head of biological laboratories at Iraq's military industrialisation organisation.