WASHINGTON, April 25: US forces apprehended a former senior Iraqi intelligence official on Friday near the Syrian border in Iraq, netting a figure associated with an alleged 1993 plot to assassinate former president George Bush in Kuwait, a US official said.

Farouk Hijazi, who last served as Iraq’s ambassador to Tunisia, was the number-three person in Iraqi intelligence at the time of the plot to kill current President George Bush’s father.

“He is in US custody,” said the official.

Hijazi’s capture, which came a day after the surrender of former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz, gives US investigators an opportunity to probe his role in the Bush plot as well as alleged Iraqi connections to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.—AFP