Key Iraqi 'weapons official' held

US hopes the arrests will help search for Iraqi weapons

US military officials say they have arrested three senior members of Saddam Hussein's regime, including the official in charge of developing Iraqi weapons.

The man - former Deputy Prime Minister Abd al Tawab Mullah Huwaysh - was 16th in the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqi officials.

US investigators will hope his arrest will help them in the search for the weapons of mass destruction that Washington said Iraq possessed, but which have so far proved elusive.

A former vice-president - who was not believed to have been within Saddam Hussein's inner circle - has also been held, US Central Command said.

Along with a third person reportedly arrested on Thursday, the coalition are now believed to have 18 senior Iraqi figures in custody.

The latest arrests come hours after President George W Bush held a victory speech, saying the US had prevailed in the "Battle of Iraq".

Without formally declaring the war over, Mr Bush vowed to continue "to hunt down the enemy before he can strike".

In other developments:

• US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the war in Iraq is not finished and it is "not knowable" how long US troops would stay there

• The United Nations says it is re-establishing a permanent presence in Baghdad, as a senior humanitarian official arrives there

• Key Iraqi political parties begin a series of meetings to discuss moves to set up an interim government

• The European Union agrees in principle to the return of EU diplomats to Iraq

• The US formally closes its operation run out of Turkey to monitor a northern no-fly zone in Iraq

Weapons boss

Abd al Tawab Mullah Huwaysh - the 10 of hearts in the 55-stack of cards produced in April - was head of the Ministry of Military Industrialisation in Iraq, a department established in the 1980s to develop weapons.

No details have been given on whether he was captured or gave himself up.

Cheers greeted Mr Bush's announcement of victory

Taha Muhyl al Din Maruf as well as being a vice-president was also a member of the Republican Command Council, the statement from Central Command said.

The nine of diamonds was number 42 on the list of targeted officials.

A number higher on the list was Mizban Khidir Hadi, commander of one of four military regions Saddam Hussein established on the eve of the war.

The nine of hearts was arrested on Thursday in Baghdad, the US Army's Fifth Corps said, according to the Associated Press News Agency. There has been no confirmation from Centcom.

'Victory not end'

In his victory speech, Mr Bush said "difficult work" remained to be done in Iraq.

"We are pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We have begun a search for chemical and biological weapons, and already know hundreds of sites that will be investigated," he said.

He linked the war in Iraq to the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

"The Battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on 11 September 2001, and still goes on," he said.

We have begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated

George W Bush

Bush speech: Full text

US press reviews 'victory'

World gives mixed reaction

The president spoke of victories in Afghanistan, but warned that Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network was "wounded, not destroyed".

"We will continue to hunt down the enemy before he can strike," he told cheering officers on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

Mr Bush landed on the ship in a small navy plane, making him the first sitting US president to take part in a so-called tailhook landing.

Earlier, Mr Bush's spokesman Ari Fleischer warned that the president's speech would not mark the end of hostilities "from a legal point of view".

There are legal implications to declaring a war officially ended: under the Geneva Conventions, once war is declared over, the victorious army must release prisoners-of-war and halt operations targeting specific leaders.

The US is not prepared to do that, the BBC's Matt Frei in Washington says.

The United States never formally declared war on Iraq.