Oct 28, 2008, 13:43 GMT
Baghdad - The Iraqi police tipped the US military to the whereabouts of a senior al-Qaeda terrorist hiding in a Syrian border village that was the site of Sunday's controversial US raid, the al- Arabiya news network reported Tuesday.
The Dubai-based network reported that the US raid targeted al- Qaeda senior leader Badran Turki al-Hisan, who was of Iraqi origin.
It added that the Iraqi government had been demanding his handover from Syria since February when it labeled him one of the 'most dangerous terrorists of al-Qaeda.'
Al-Arabiya also quoted sources as saying that al-Hisan was behind the killing of a dozen Iraqi policemen in an attack earlier this year.
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Monday that the raid targeted a haven for a militant group which used to carry out deadly attacks inside Iraq.
The US military on Sunday raided Syria's al-Sukariya village near the town of Abu Kamal, 8 kilometres from the Iraqi border.
By official Syrian accounts, eight civilians, including four children, were killed in the helicopter-borne commando raid, which triggered outrage in Syria and other Arab countries in the region.
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