Top Iraqi nuclear official 'spent time in Syria'

A top Iraqi nuclear scientist recently spent time in Syria, and Saddam Hussein’s first wife may be there now, US intelligence officials said.

But they said reports that other top Iraqi leaders had arrived in Syria were uncorroborated.

The scientist, Jaffar al-Jaffer, left Syria and went to another Middle Eastern country where he turned himself over to authorities over the last few days, officials said. He was being interviewed by American officials.

Some reports put Saddam’s first wife, Sajida Khairallah Telfah, in Syria, but other reports placed her in other countries that officials declined to specify. She was believed to have left Iraq, but it was unclear when.

Bush administration officials have publicly accused Syria of taking in members of Saddam’s former regime.

As early as April 2, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of unconfirmed reports that members of the Iraqi president’s family, including his first wife, had fled.

The officials said that information on the wife’s departure, but not her destination, had firmed up since then.

Saddam’s half brother, Watban Ibrahim Hasan, an adviser to the deposed Iraqi president, was captured near Mosul in recent days, apparently preparing to flee to Syria, US officials said.

The nuclear scientist, al-Jaffer, was believed to know key people and locations of facilities connected to Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme, the officials said.

His confinement, along with Saturday’s surrender of Lt Gen Amer al-Saadi, Saddam’s alleged point man on various weapons’ programmes, could provide US officials with a wealth of information on Iraq’s chemical, biological, nuclear and long range missile efforts.

Al-Jaffer, a British-educated physicist, was described by UN inspectors as the father of Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme.

The whereabouts and status of other members of Saddam’s immediate family were not known. Nor did officials have definitive word on Saddam or his elder sons, Uday and Qusai, both senior leaders in Saddam’s administration.

Other members of Saddam’s family, including Saddam’s second wife, three daughters and another son, may have information on their whereabouts, officials said. All kept low profiles during Saddam’s rule, and none held senior positions.

Saddam’s first wife was mother to Uday, Qusai and three daughters: Raghad, Rana and Hala.

Some of the children have children of their own. Saddam remains married to both wives. In Islam, a man may have as many as four wives.

In 1995, Raghad’s and Rana’s husbands defected from Iraq to Jordan. The brothers were debriefed by Western intelligence officials and reportedly disclosed secrets of Iraq’s military and weapons programs.

They failed to gain the trust of Iraqi exiles, however, and returned to Baghdad with their families six months later on Saddam’s promise neither they nor their families would be harmed.

They were shot down shortly after they arrived, and Saddam placed Sajida under house arrest because she demanded that he punish the killers. Opponents said they were instigated by Uday.

Saddam’s second wife, Samira Shahbandar, was mother to Saddam’s other son, Ali Saddam Hussein. Saddam married Shahbandar, a daughter of a prominent Iraqi family, in the late 1980s, and their son is not believed to be old enough to have any responsibilities.