NEW YORK, March 11: US federal prosecutors said on Thursday they had arrested a US citizen, charged with acting as a paid spy for Iraqi intelligence.

An indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court charged Susan Lindauer with acting as an unregistered agent of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) and engaging in prohibited financial transactions with the government of Iraq.

Lindauer, 41, allegedly made multiple visits to the Iraq's United Nations mission in New York from Oct 1999 through March 2002 and met several IIS members.

The indictment noted that the IIS, as well as coordinating counter-intelligence activities, played a role in numerous terrorist operations, including the attempted assassination of former president George Bush.

"Additionally, the IIS located, intimidated, and killed Iraqi defectors and dissidents living abroad," it said. Lindauer was arrested on Thursday morning in her hometown of Takoma Park, Maryland, and was to be brought before a judge in Baltimore later in the day. She will be formally arraigned in New York on March 15.

During her visits to the UN mission, Lindauer allegedly accepted various payments - totalling around 15,000 dollars - in return for services provided in the course of her "ongoing intelligence relationship" with the IIS.

Some of the payments were made when Lindauer visited Baghdad in early 2002 - a trip paid for by the IIS. Prosecutors said Lindauer's acceptance of money, if proven, would constitute a violation of the statute prohibiting transactions with a government that sponsors international terrorism. -AFP