Baddie Update

Great news: Midhat Mursi is titzup.

ABC News has learned that al Qaeda's master bomb maker and chemical weapons expert was one of the men killed in last week's U.S. missile attack in eastern Pakistan.

Midhat Mursi, 52, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, was identified by Pakistani authorities as one of three known al Qaeda leaders present at an apparent terror summit conference in the village of Damadola.

The United States had posted a $5 million reward for Mursi's capture. He is described by U.S. authorities as the man who ran al Qaeda's infamous Derunta training camp in Afghanistan, where he used dogs and other animals as subjects of experiments with poison and chemicals.

The bad news: in response to thugs' demands, the US will release six of eight female detainees in Iraq.

Iraq's ministry of justice has told the BBC that six of the eight women being held by coalition forces in Iraq are to be released early. The six will be freed because there is insufficient evidence to charge them, a justice ministry spokesman said.

The US forces have refused to confirm the releases, but say they would not be based on any operational activities.

The group holding US journalist Jill Carroll has said she will die unless all Iraqi women prisoners are freed.

The status of prisoners held by coalition forces is reviewed twice a week by a committee made up of the justice, human rights and interior ministries, and a representative of the US-led coalition.

However, the US military stressed that decisions over such matters were a detailed process that were unrelated to any other operational activity.

The really bad news: that same "detailed process" resulted in the release of Dr. Germ and Mrs. Anthrax last month, with no urging from terrorists.

The U.S. military has released eight former Baathist detainees of high value, a military spokesman said Monday [19 Dec 05].

Among them are two female biological weapons experts: Rihab Taha, the head of Iraq's biological weapons program, also known as "Dr. Germ;" and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, a top weapons scientist, known as "Mrs. Anthrax," CNN has learned. Both were captured a week apart in May 2003.

A lawyer for both women, Badie Arif, confirmed their release, saying that in all 25 detainees were freed, eight of whom were considered high-value.

The U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, would not release details on the detainees except to say the release occurred Saturday as part of a detainee review process.

"We no longer had cause to hold them since they are no longer under investigation for crimes," Johnson said in a statement.