U.S-led forces detained three top leaders of Saddam Hussein's regime, including a vice president and a director of weapons development, U.S. officials said Friday.
The officials taken into custody - all on the U.S. most-wanted list of 55 regime leaders - were identified as Abdel Tawab Mullah Huweish, director of the Military Industrialization Organization; Taha Muhi-eldin Marouf, a vice president and member of the Revolutionary Command Council, and Mizban Khadr Hadi, another Revolutionary Command Council member who had been an adviser to Saddam since the early 1980s.
The Military Industrialization Organization oversaw development of Iraq's weapons. Huweish was listed as No. 16 on the most-wanted list, Hadi was No. 41 and Marouf was No. 42. Eighteen of the 55 officials on the list are now in custody, and another is believed to have been killed in an air strike.
The U.S. military provided few details about the detention of the three top officials.
Marouf was the only Kurd in the Baath hierarchy. He was appointed as one of Iraq's two vice presidents in 1975, but the position is seen largely as a gesture to the Kurdish minority and he had little real power. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
