"News From The Two Iraq War Fronts"

The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was arrested in the northern city of Mosul, the Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman said Thursday.

Mohammed al-Askari said the arrest of al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, was confirmed to him by the Iraqi commander of the province. There was no immediate confirmation or comment from U.S. forces on the arrest.

The U.S. military in Baghdad said "we are currently checking with Iraqi authorities to confirm the accuracy of this information."

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said that Mosul police "arrested one of al-Qaida's leaders at midnight and during the primary investigations he admitted that he is Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir."

News of the arrest was also reported by Iraqi state television and Arab satellite TV stations.

The state channel, Iraqiya, said that Minister of Interior Jawad al-Bolani would reward Mosul police for the capture.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khalaf told the station by phone that a source close to the al-Qaida leader informed Mosul police that al-Masri would be at a house in the city's Wadi Hajar area at midnight Wednesday.

"The police raided this house and arrested him. During the primary investigation, he confessed that he is Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir, the leader of Al-Qaida in Iraq. Now a broader investigation of him is being conducted," he said to Iraqiya.

If confirmed, the arrest would represent a major blow to al-Qaida in Iraq, which has been on the run for the past year following a shift in alliances by Sunni tribesmen in western Anbar province, and elsewhere, and an influx of thousands of U.S. troops.

The U.S. military considers the organization its number one enemy in Iraq.

     The leader of al-queda in Iraq being captured is very good news on that particular operational front, the other major operational front being the Shite "Mahdi Army" militia. Two different fronts demanding two different ways of fighting the enemy. It was Iraqi police who skillfully arrested the head of al-queda in Iraq right within the al-queda stronghold of Mosul and since this al-queda leader was captured alive, there is a good possibility of garnering valuable intelligence to inflict more damage to this terrorist group in Iraq. The Iraqi police force is making progress in bringing down al-queda in Iraq.

In the northern Salahaddin province, a commander of a tribal police unit, who was formerly a senior member of the al-Qaeda terrorist network in Iraq, was wounded along with three policemen in a suicide bombing.

A suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt attacked the motorcade of the police chief of Duluiyah and his companions, including Mullah Nazim al-Juburi, the commander of the local Awakening Council, police sources told the Voices of Iraq news agency.

Al-Juburi was lightly injured in the attack, which occurred in Duluiyah.

The Awakening Councils are US-backed tribal forces formed in Sunni areas to fight insurgents of Sunni extremist groups, such as al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Al-Juburi, who is now the imam of the main mosque in Duluiyah, was himself a leader of the al-Qaeda in Iraq group for the past four years until he turned against it and set up the local Awakening Council.

Also in Salahaddin, tribal policemen killed four insurgents and found a weapon cache in Tikrit, 175 kilometres north of Baghdad, the US military said Thursday.

     The second military operational front in the Iraq war is not going as well as the fight against al-queda in Iraq. Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army is strongly resisting the Iraqi and American forces in Sadr City and elsewhere.

The Iraqi government is bracing for a big offensive against loyalists of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, according to a politician from his bloc, while three people were killed and 20 injured in attacks, including a former commander of al-Qaeda in Iraq group. Fighting between government and US troops and al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia raging since the end of March has left around 1,000 people dead and over 2,500 wounded, many of them civilians.

"Iraqi and US military preparations are underway to move into Sadr City," Asma al-Musawi, a member of al-Sadr Bloc, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The government has told people in two of the 79 neighbourhoods that make up Sadr City to leave their homes in preparation for a push into the area, al-Musawi said.

"The area is on the brink of a big humanitarian disaster," she warned.

The battle has intensified recently with street to street and house to house fighting. Government and US forces have so far failed to subdue the militiamen despite almost daily airstrikes

   Like millions of other Americans I want to see our soldiers come home but also like millions of other Americans I want to see a reasonably stable and secure Iraq when America leaves. The disarming of the Mahdi Army and all other militias in Iraq is critical for Iraqi national security, in my opinion. After the offensive against the Mahdi Army is concluded, amnesty should be given to any remaining Mahdi Army fighters if they join the Iraqi army and security forces. Whatever troops that remain in Iraq after the two year phased withdrawal that Clinton and Obama are promising should be placed with some sort of coalition forces whose sole mission would be to guard the Iraq and Iran border, thus cutting off Iranian weapons and fighters from getting into Iraq. Just because the Iraq war was wrong from the start doesn't mean it can't be right in the end! A truly democratic Muslim country in the heart of the Middle East is something worth fighting and dying for, in my opinion.

tags: iraq  al queda  mahdi army  warpeace  baghdad  sadr city  bush  security  us  war  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit