Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, one of Iraq’s top biological weapons, scientists was taken into custody yesterday, a US defence department official said.
On the Pentagon’s list of the 55 most wanted, she is number 53, and referred to as the party’s youth and trade bureau chairperson. Ammash appears as the five of hearts in the deck of cards, portraying wanted Saddam-era officials, which were issued to US troops.
US intelligence officials said that Ammas (49) is believed to have played a key role in rebuilding Baghdad’s biological weapons capability since the Gulf war in 1991. She was also identified as a Ba’ath party regional command member.
In one of several videos of Saddam released during the war, Ammash was the only woman among half a dozen men seated around a table. The videos were used as Iraqi propaganda as invading forces drew closer to Baghdad, and it was not known when the meeting happened or what the significance of her visibility on camera was.
American officials said Ammash was among a new generation of leaders named by Saddam to leading posts within Iraq’s Ba’ath party.
US officials said she was trained by Nassir al-Hindawi, described by United Nations inspectors as the father of Iraq’s biological weapons programme.
Ammash has served as president of Iraqi’s microbiological society and as dean at University of Baghdad.
Ammash and al-Hindawi are among Iraq’s top weapons scientists. Others include Amir al-Saadi, a chief chemical weapons researcher, and Dr Rihab Taha, dubbed ”Dr Germ” by inspectors.
Her father was a high-level party revolutionary believed to have been murdered on the orders of Saddam, officials said.
Ammash received a master of science in microbiology from Texas Women’s University, in Denton, Texas, after graduating from the University of Baghdad. She later spent four years at the University of Missouri-Columbia in pursuit of her doctorate in microbiology, which she received in December 1983. ‒ Guardian Unlimited Â