Two Iraqis were arrested Thursday in the northern city of Mosul for carrying a barrel of material suspected to be uranium, a high-ranking police officer told AFP Sunday.
"Iraqi police stopped two Iraqis at a checkpoint north of Mosul. They were carrying a huge quantity of uranium to northern Iraq," said General Hikmat Mahmud Mohamed of the Nineveh province's police department.
One policeman was burned when he tried to open the barrel and was hospitalised, Mohamed said.
"The policeman had burns due to uranium," said doctor Fawzi Muaffak Ahmed at the Hazem al-Hafez hospital in Mosul.
"The two suspects have been transferred to the US forces who are leading the investigation," Mohamed said.
Mohamed added the investigation was being conducted in secret and that barrels of red and white mercury were also found in the suspects' car.
A US military spokesman said he had no immediate information on the incident.
Northern Iraq has been on high alert since twin suicide bombings in the town of Arbil on February 1 killed more than 100 people.
The US invasion of Iraq last spring was driven by Washington's fear that Saddam Hussein had or was close to obtaining weapons of mass destruction.
But on January 28, the former chief US arms inspector in Iraq, David Kay, virtually ruled out the possibility of finding any weapons of mass destruction.
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