Looters systematically removed tons of equipment from Iraqi weapons facilities, including some capable of making parts for nuclear arms in the weeks following the US-led invasion of Iraq that ousted Saddam Hussein, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.

Citing Iraq's deputy minister of industry, Sami al-Araji, the paper reported that the looting was highly organized and that it apparently pinpointed certain plants in search of significant equipment.

"They came in with the cranes and the lorries, and they depleted the whole sites," Araji told the Times in an interview. "They knew what they were doing; they knew what they want. This was sophisticated looting."

The senior official based his account mainly on observations by government employees and officials who either worked at the sites and lived nearby, the newspaper reported.

He had no evidence of where the equipment had ended up, but said that the black market or foreign governments were possibilities.

The US military invaded Iraq in spring 2003 under the pretext of Iraq's weapon-making capability, but so far no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.

Xinhua