May

9

Iraqi officials say leader of al-Qaida in Iraq arrested

Filed Under World News | Posted By Jennifer Sullivan |

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m91.jpgIraqi police commandos captured the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq in an attack in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi officials stated Thursday, in what could mark an important blow to the Sunni rebellion in its final urban stranglehold.

But, the U.S. military on Friday informed there were “no operational reports” to verify the capture of the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq as told by Iraqi officials, adding the capture of an additional insurgent may have set off puzzlement.

Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari stated the arrest of Abu Ayyub al-Masri — also identified as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir — was reported by the Iraqi commander in Mosul, where rebels have sought to set up a grip after being extensively uprooted from Baghdad and nearby areas previous year.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf told the arrest happened “at midnight and during the prime investigations he confessed that he is Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir.”

However, the U.S. military stated Friday in response to an e-mailed inquiry that “we are looking into reports that a different terrorist may have been captured.” The military did not share additional particulars on the other reported capture but told that might have created confusion.

There have been fake alarms in the earlier period regarding al-Masri. At least twice — in 2006 and May 2007 — reports spread that al-Masri was dead, but they were afterward proved incorrect.

Khalaf stated the Iraqi state television that al-Masri was arrested during a police raid in Mosul, but provided no extra information. “At present a broader examination of him is being conducted,” he stated.

Mosul was considered the final important urban staging ground for al-Qaida in Iraqi and related groups after losing strongholds in Baghdad and further areas during the U.S. troop “surge” last year.

In January, Iraq’s prime minister Nouri al-Maliki assureed his military were arranging for a “decisive” showdown with insurgents in Mosul, about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. Though, no major offensives have been mounted even as al-Qaida in Iraq tried to put forth its influence in Iraq’s third-largest city through attacks and threats.

Al-Masri is a prized target for Iraqi commanders, who have led operations in the Mosul area and have required countering worries that Iraqi forces lack the training and discipline to wage a head-on fight not in favor of insurgents.

However, al-Qaida in Iraq has proved to preserve its long-term capability to wage suicide attacks and other strikes even after the capture of deaths of its leaders. Al-Masri took over al-Qaida in Iraq after its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed June 7, 2006 in a U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad.

But the pace of insurgent attacks remained strong as al-Masri took accusation.

Any direct links are foggy among al-Masri’s insurgents and the terror network of Osama bin Laden. But al-Masri has followed a pathway that brought him in contact with some of bin Laden’s top lieutenants.

U.S. officials stated al-Masri — whose name means “The Egyptian” in Arabic — joined al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan in the late 1990s and trained as a car bombing expert prior to traveling to Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The U.S. military also described al-Masri as a prior member of the extremist Islamic Jihad in Egypt and a protege of Ayman al-Zawahri, who became bin Laden’s No. 2 after the group joined with al-Qaida in 1998.

The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organization that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, last year declared an “Islamic Cabinet” for Iraq and named al-Masri as “minister of war.” The U.S. military had put a $5 million bounty for al-Masri.

In the meantime, the U.S. military on Friday stated U.S. soldiers killed six Shiite extremists, who attacked U.S. forces with shoulder fired rockets and small arms, in several clashes in Baghdad’s Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City on Thursday.

The reported arrest of al-Masri has also turned awareness back to the Sunni insurgency after weeks of battles with Shiite militias.
On Thursday, government representatives set severe demands for Shiite militias to end their battles against U.S.-led forces in Baghdad. But it was not likely that militiamen would stand for by the government conditions to surrender their arms.

But the government outreach to representatives of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr — who controls the powerful Mahdi Army militia — underscored the doubts about a rising humanitarian and political crises for Iraq’s leadership if the fighting spreads.

Thousands of civilians by now have fled their homes in Sadr City — home to nearly 40 percent of Baghdad’s population — and help groups say few areas are very much short of food and medicine after seven weeks of street battles.

The most recent clash flared in late March after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a onslaught on armed Shiite factions in the southern city of Basra, the nation’s second-largest urban area. Mahdi fighters promptly rose up in Basra and Sadr City, their stronghold in Baghdad.



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