Senior Iraq al-Qaeda figure held
The second most senior leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, accused of masterminding the bombing of a Shia shrine in Samarra, has been detained by Iraqi and US forces.
Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi national security adviser, announced on Sunday that Hamed Juma Faris al-Saeedi, also known as Abu Humam or Abu Rana, had been arrested in an operation in mid-June.
Al-Rubaie said he was the deputy to Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who took over control of al-Qaeda’s Iraq operations after US troops killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June.
“During the raid, Saeedi took shelter in a residental building, but he was arrested without any harm to civilians,” al-Rubaie added, without explaining why his arrest was not announced until nearly two months later.
Further arrests
Al-Saeedi is accused of ordering the February 22 bomb attack which demolished the Shia shrine in the town of Samarra, north of the capital.
Al-Rubaie said that during the raid to capture al-Saeedi, 11 other senior al-Qaeda operatives and nine lesser suspects were also detained.
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“We’ve got a very good capability that’s growing within the Iraqi security forces that’s able to take the challenge on” Captain Frank Pascual, US military |
“He was hiding in a building used by families, he wanted to use children and women as human shields as our forces attempted to capture him.
“He was directly responsible for the criminal Haitham al-Badri, the mastermind and the bomber of the Samarra shrine.
“I can say that al-Qaeda in Iraq is severely wounded,” al-Rubaie said.
Samarra bombing
A spokesman for the US military, Captain Frank Pascual, said the capture of al-Saeedi “demonstrates the growing capability of Iraqi security forces in fighting terror within their own borders, particularly al-Qaeda”.
“We’ve got a very good capability that’s growing within the Iraqi security forces that’s able to take the challenge on, and which is able to capture, kill or drive them [al-Qaeda] away.” he told Aljazeera.
The bombing of the Shia shrine in February inflamed tensions between Shia and Sunni Muslims and triggered reprisal attacks that still continue.
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The Shia shrine in Samarra was |
In June, al-Rubaie had announced the capture of a Tunisian al-Qaeda figure suspected of participating in the Samarra shrine bombing.
Abu Qudama al-Tunisi was accused of taking an active part in blowing up the mosque’s golden dome on orders from an Iraqi militant, Haitham al-Badri.
On Sunday, al-Rubaie said that al-Badri had taken orders from al-Saeedi to bomb the shrine. Al-Badri still remains at large.
Al-Zarqawi clue
Al-Rubaie said the authorities had obtained information about al-Saeedi after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a US air strike north of Baghdad.
The information indicated that al-Saeedi had moved to northern Baghdad and had been operating outside Baquba, the same area where al-Zarqawi was killed.
Iraq and US officials have blamed al-Qaeda in Iraq for some of the worst attacks against civilians, which they say are part of a campaign to ignite a sectarian civil war between the majority Shia and minority Sunnis.