Baghdad - A senior al-Qaeda leader was arrested on Sunday
during joint US army and Iraqi police raids in west Samara, while
reports of separate acts of violence, including the assassination of
a prominent party member, also surfaced elsewhere in Iraq.
The 'fierce gunfights' between the forces and al-Qaeda-affiliated
militants in Samara also left 10 militants killed and eight wounded,
reported Arab broadcaster al-Arabiya.
The arrested al-Qaeda senior, Abdel-Rahman al-Anbary, was said to
have fled the northern Anbar province to Samara, 125 kilometres north
of Baghdad, in Salahaddin province after security surges were
launched in Anbar.
Al-Anbary and his followers had reportedly poured into Samara and
used its demography and the unpopulated countryside surrounding it to
form a hideout.
A large cache of weapons and explosives was reportedly confiscated
in the same raid, according to al-Arabiya's report. The US-Iraqi
operation has been raging since dawn on Sunday.
Separately, unknown gunmen killed a member of the Sunni Islamic
Iraqi Party, which is a member of the Iraqi Accord Front with 44
seats in parliament.
Ali Momtaz Ibrahim and three of his accompanies were shot down and
died immediately in the Wehda district, south-eastern Mosul,
according to the Iraqi News Agency (INA).
An Iraqi army statemkent meanwhile said Iraqi troops killed over
40 militants and captured 52 in the past 24 hours. The raids had
targeted Baghdad, Mosul, Samara and Hilla, according to the
independent Voices of Iraq news agency.
The agency also cited police sources who said at least five people
-including three al-Qaeda-affiliated militants and two civilians -
were killed during separate acts of violence in the past 24 hours.
Around seven unidentified corpses were also discovered in Baquba,
said the sources. The body of a kidnapped Iraqi soldier was found in
Diwaniyah. He had disappeared on Saturday night.
Separately, broadcaster al-Arabiya had earlier showed pictures of
black smoke over the Dora area, southern Baghdad, where 'a possible
explosion may have occurred,' according to the news source.
The nature of the explosion was not disclosed and it was not
reported by local news sources. But US Apache combat helicopters were
seen hovering over the area.
On September 26, the US military had captured 14 al-Qaeda suspects
from the Dora area, where Sunday's violence was suspected.
The US military said Sunday afternoon they had received multiple
reports of 60 armed 'terrorists' in the Dora region. It is not clear
if Sunday sightings were connected to a possible raid on the area.
Meanwhile, US-led coalition forces said Sunday that three Sunni
imams from separate mosques were slain in Nineveh province a day
earlier by gunmen suspected of belonging to al-Qaeda in Iraq. The
imams preached in al-Hoda, al-Sediq and al-Sahabah mosques in Mosul.
'It is so very tragic and saddening that these murders occurred,
especially during the holy month of Ramadan,' said Major General
Benjamin Mixon, commander of multinational Division North. 'It is a
time traditionally associated with peace and forgiveness between
Muslims.'
This incident was under investigation by Iraqi police, according
to the US statement.
In a separate statement, the US military said their forces
detained 15 suspected criminals believed to be senior members of a
special network with ties to other suspected criminals.
According to a US military report, intelligence had also indicated
that the area is frequented by the network's commander who is
involved in weapons smuggling throughout Iraq.
Also on Sunday, the military said that Iraqi and US special
operation forces had detained 16 suspected terrorists a day earlier
in Yusifiyah, outside of Baghdad. The militants belong to a cell
believed to responsile for violence and with links to al-Qaeda group
in Iraq.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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