Coalition captures Iraqi inspections liaison

WASHINGTON -- The Iraqi general in charge of the liaison between Baghdad and U.N. weapons inspectors looking for weapons of mass destruction has been captured, Pentagon officials said Sunday.

Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, who headed the National Monitoring Directorate, was No. 49 on the Pentagon's list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis and the 13th to be taken into custody. His image appeared on the six of clubs in the deck of cards issued to coalition troops.

The monitoring directorate worked with U.N. weapons inspectors looking for chemical, biological or nuclear weapons outlawed by U.N. resolutions after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Amin's capture comes as a fresh report surfaced Sunday about possible chemical weapons found by U.S. troops in northern Iraq, though further tests need to be carried out to the substances.

Three preliminary tests, which experts say can be unreliable, of chemicals found in barrels at a former Iraqi military position suggested the presence of two U.N.-banned weapons -- a nerve agent and a blister agent, a U.S. Army officer told CNN on Sunday.

The material was found near a mobile laboratory that soldiers said could have been used to mix chemicals.

Other suspicious chemicals initially reported by some members of the news media as weapons of mass destruction have, on later testing, turned out to be pesticides or other industrial chemicals.