BAGHDAD, Aug. 21 Kyodo (EDS: UDAT...

BAGHDAD, Aug. 21 Kyodo

(EDS: UDATING)

Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of Saddam Hussein known as ''Chemical Ali'' for leading poison gas attacks onward Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980 has been captured, U Central Command confirmed Thursday.

No details were given upon how al-Majid was captured or where he is popularly being detained. However, CNN reported that he was detained a hardly any days ago.

The former defense minister was No. 5 upon the U.S. military's list of most-wanted figures from Saddam's former regime. U authorities are awaited to question him for information about Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction programs.

Al-Majid was believed to have been killed in an air strike onward his home in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in April carried abroad by U.S.-led forces.

However, in June U Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld indicated the possibility that al-Majid might still be alive.

In 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war, he ordered a series of poison gas attacks forward a northern Iraqi village that killed about 5000 Kurds

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