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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. officials confirm that the Bush Administration in recent weeks considered a covert CIA and military mission against a primitive Al Qaeda-affiliated biological weapons test facility in northern Iraq, but say that no mission is imminent.

Another senior U.S. official told CNN any possible attack has been called off.

The area where tests were conducted on barnyard animals and possibly one human using the biological toxin Ricin is in a small part of northern Iraq under the control of Kurdish militants with ties to Al Qaeda, U.S. officials said. The area is within the Kurdish region of northern Iraq -- a part of that country not under the control of the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. U.S. officials stress they have no reason to believe Saddam Hussein would have been aware of the weapons testing.

A senior Administration official confirmed President Bush has been briefed by his national security aides about the matter, and that discussions have included how to deal with the facility.

National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton said "we don't comment on military targeting or discussions about possible military targets". Another Administration official noted that the area is within the northern no-fly zone patrolled by US and allied warplanes since the end of the Gulf War.

The official said it is the Administration's view that even though the facility is not under the control of Saddam Hussein, it is within Iraq's borders, and covered by the cease-fire agreement signed at the end of the Gulf War prohibiting such facilities within Iraq.

The group that conducted the Ricin tests calls itself Ansar al-Islam, officials say. It opposes the rule of pro-US Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq. Some of its members received training, officials say, in Al Qaeda-run camps in Afghanistan.