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Iraqis claim capture of key members of Zarqawi insurgency
Iraqi authorities claim to have made a series of breakthroughs in the battle against the insurgent group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which has carried out a bloody catalogue of car bombings, kidnappings and beheadings across Iraq.
Government officials said yesterday that a key lieutenant to the Jordanian-born terroristhad been captured, claiming that the aide played a crucial middle-man role in the operations of his organisation which has been linked to al-Qa'ida.
Talib Mikhlif Arsan Walman al-Dulaymi, also known as Abu Qutaybah, was captured during a raid on 20 February in Anah, 160 miles north-west of Baghdad. He was allegedly responsible for arranging all personal meetings between members of the terrorist network and Zarqawi. Iraqi authorities added that Dulaymi "filled the role of key lieutenant for the Zarqawi network, arranging safehouses and transportation as well as passing packages and funds to Zarqawi. His extensive contacts and operational ability throughout western Iraq made him a critical figure."
In the same raid, Iraqi forces claimed to have captured another aide who occasionally acted as the militant's driver, while officials also reported that the leader of a Zarqawi cell who had carried out numerous beheadings had been arrested by the Iraqi National Guard. The man, Mohamed Najam Ibrahim, was held on Thursday.
Police said Ibrahim, who was said to have beheaded people with his brother, was being interrogated.
A senior spokesman for the interior ministry, said the arrest was part of a string of detentions. "We captured on Thursday six terrorists, the day before we captured nine of them," he said.
"The nine were three Sudanese, three Egyptians, and three Iraqis, and their specialty was cutting off the heads of their victims. They were affiliated with al-Qa'ida. The six men on Thursday were Syrians."
Zarqawi himself carries a $25m (£13m) bounty on his head and the arrests are being presented as a propaganda coup for the Interim Authority.
An Iraqi officer apparently being held by al-Qa'ida in Iraq urged security forces to quit the service and stop assisting "infidel occupiers" in an internet videotape posted yesterday. The tape did not reveal the fate of the man who was carrying police identification from eastern Diyala province bearing the name Colonel Salem Aziz Saleh.
The latest high-profile arrests will have raised hope among government officials and the American military that interrogations will yield crucial information on the militant leader's movements.
But recent taped confessions, broadcast on Al-Iraqia, a government-owned and US-funded television channel, have led human rights groups to question the conditions in which detainees are being held.
Commenting on the men captured this week, the interior ministry spokesman said: "We didn't torture any of those people. They simply admitted to their crimes during interrogation. We think when other people see them on television, they will be reassured and they will be more comfortable coming forward and turning people in."
Sabah Khadim, another interior ministry official, said the government was still working to improve its intelligence capabilities, but at present has only 800 officers countrywide.
"The ministry of interior was dissolved during the occupation, so there was no personnel, no cars," Mr Khadim said. "Intelligence takes a long time."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=614899
Talib Mikhlif Arsan Walman al-Dulaymi, also known as Abu Qutaybah, was captured during a raid on 20 February in Anah, 160 miles north-west of Baghdad. He was allegedly responsible for arranging all personal meetings between members of the terrorist network and Zarqawi. Iraqi authorities added that Dulaymi "filled the role of key lieutenant for the Zarqawi network, arranging safehouses and transportation as well as passing packages and funds to Zarqawi. His extensive contacts and operational ability throughout western Iraq made him a critical figure."
In the same raid, Iraqi forces claimed to have captured another aide who occasionally acted as the militant's driver, while officials also reported that the leader of a Zarqawi cell who had carried out numerous beheadings had been arrested by the Iraqi National Guard. The man, Mohamed Najam Ibrahim, was held on Thursday.
Police said Ibrahim, who was said to have beheaded people with his brother, was being interrogated.
A senior spokesman for the interior ministry, said the arrest was part of a string of detentions. "We captured on Thursday six terrorists, the day before we captured nine of them," he said.
"The nine were three Sudanese, three Egyptians, and three Iraqis, and their specialty was cutting off the heads of their victims. They were affiliated with al-Qa'ida. The six men on Thursday were Syrians."
Zarqawi himself carries a $25m (£13m) bounty on his head and the arrests are being presented as a propaganda coup for the Interim Authority.
An Iraqi officer apparently being held by al-Qa'ida in Iraq urged security forces to quit the service and stop assisting "infidel occupiers" in an internet videotape posted yesterday. The tape did not reveal the fate of the man who was carrying police identification from eastern Diyala province bearing the name Colonel Salem Aziz Saleh.
The latest high-profile arrests will have raised hope among government officials and the American military that interrogations will yield crucial information on the militant leader's movements.
But recent taped confessions, broadcast on Al-Iraqia, a government-owned and US-funded television channel, have led human rights groups to question the conditions in which detainees are being held.
Commenting on the men captured this week, the interior ministry spokesman said: "We didn't torture any of those people. They simply admitted to their crimes during interrogation. We think when other people see them on television, they will be reassured and they will be more comfortable coming forward and turning people in."
Sabah Khadim, another interior ministry official, said the government was still working to improve its intelligence capabilities, but at present has only 800 officers countrywide.
"The ministry of interior was dissolved during the occupation, so there was no personnel, no cars," Mr Khadim said. "Intelligence takes a long time."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=614899
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Political parties are wrangling for top posts in a new government - whose most pressing task will be dealing with the insurgency.
North of Baghdad, a bomb blast killed three patrolling U.S. soldiers and wounded nine others, the military said.
The U.S. command said another soldier was killed in action west of the capital a day earlier, and a fifth soldier died in Baghdad in a non-hostile incident.
Iranian-born Sistani's endorsement came after members of the clergy-backed alliance openly questioned its decision Tuesday to nominate 58-year-old Jaafari, who heads the conservative Islamic Dawa Party, as its candidate for prime minister following Jan. 30 elections. "Ayatollah Sistani blessed the decision taken by the alliance about the prime minister post. He respects and supports what the alliance have decided," Jaafari told reporters after meeting with Sistani in the southern Shiite holy city of Najaf.
He said that Iraq's Sunni Arab minority should be brought into the political process and help draft the country's first Constitution. Bringing the Sunni into the political process could help deflate the insurgency.
Sunni Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of the population, dominated Saddam Hussein's Baath party and largely boycotted the elections. They are believed to make up the core of the insurgency.
"Ayatollah Sistani also advised to take into consideration the uniqueness of the Iraqi issue making it impossible not to integrate other sects and to integrate the Sunni people who were not able to participate in the elections," Jaafari quoted Sistani as saying.
But in a move that could rile Kurds, Jaafari said that a dispute over the northern city of Kirkuk should be postponed until after the drafting of a new Constitution. A Constitution must be drafted no later than Aug. 15.
"Such a sensitive issue should not be discussed under the interim government and should be discussed when we have stability, when there is a Parliament and a permanent Constitution," Jaafari said.
Kurdish leaders have demanded constitutional guarantees for their northern regions, including self-rule in the north and reversal of the "Arabization" of Kirkuk and other northern regions. Saddam had relocated Iraqi Arabs to the region in a bid to secure control of the oil fields there.
They also want one of their leaders, Jalal Talabani, to be nominated for the post
of president.
Iraq's government said a senior aide to Al-Qaeda frontman Zarqawi had been arrested, along with a man who had acted as his driver.
Talib Mikhlif Arsan Walman al-Dulaymi, also known as Abu Qutaybah, was captured during a Feb. 20 raid in Anah, a town northwest of Baghdad.
"Abu Qutaybah was responsible for determining who, when and how terrorist network leaders would meet with Zarqawi," the government said.
He "filled the role of key lieutenant for the Zarqawi network, arranging safe houses and transportation as well as passing packages and funds to Zarqawi," the government said. "His extensive contacts and operational ability throughout western Iraq made him a critical figure in the Zarqawi network."
Zarqawi, who has a $25 million bounty on his head, is believed to have orchestrated a relentless wave of car bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and beheadings across the country.
During the same raid, Iraqi forces also captured another Zarqawi aide who "occasionally acted as his driver," the government said. The man was identified as Ahmed Khalid Marad Ismail al-Rawi.
Security sources said that in addition to the attack on U.S. soldiers near Baghdad, a U.S. marine, two members of the Iraqi security forces, seven civilians and four insurgents had been killed since Thursday.
The toll included two women and a child who were killed near the northern refinery town of Baiji when their car was blown up by a bomb that exploded just after a U.S. Army convoy passed, police said.
http://dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=13007
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Iraqis protest Saturdays off
A government decision to alter the traditional Iraqi weekend has sparked ire and protests among many who resent being forced to take a day off that many here associate with the Jewish day of rest.
Last week, the government officially changed the Iraqi weekend, adding Saturday to the traditional Friday off. The government said it would extend the six-hour work day to make up for the lost hours.
But many Iraqis ignored the government edict and went to work and school Saturday anyway to protest. Their demands are simple: they want the government to make Thursday and Friday the official weekend instead.
At Baghdad's University of Mustansariyah, a statement issued by a student union thought to be allied with the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr described Saturday as "the Zionist holiday" and said the government order should not be followed.
It was issued, the statement said, by an interim government that has "expired" following January 30 elections. The interim government remains in office until a new administration is installed. No date has been set.
"We declare a general strike in the University of Mustansariyah to reject this decision and any decision aimed at depriving Iraqis of their identity," the statement said.
In predominantly Sunni Samarra, the Mutawakal high school opened after insurgents threatened to kill its teachers if they took the day off.
On Thursday, students chanting "we don't want Saturday, it's a Jewish holiday," marched to the provincial governor's office in Baqouba, 60 kilometers northeast of Baghdad. Police fired into the air to disperse the crowd when a high school student pulled out a hand grenade and started waving it around.
At least three students were reportedly injured in the ensuing scuffle.
In many districts of Baghdad, including Shi'ite-dominated Sadr City, students and civil servants ignored the decree. At Sadr City's al-Fazilah secondary girls school, all 400 girls showed up for class.
"Sadr City is a Shiite Islamic city and we reject Saturday being our holiday because it is related to the Jewish weekend," Safaa Dawoud Mahmoud, 18, the student union leader said.
She said the student body delivered a letter to the school's administrators demanding that "Thursday and Friday be the official weekend because both days were blessed in Islam and by Sharia," or Islamic law.
Dressed in long skirts, their hair covered with dense black veils, the students demanded that teachers, many of which showed anyway up, hold classes. They also vowed to stage sit-ins until the government reverses its decision and makes Thursday the first day of a two-day weekend.
"We will keep going to school with determination and persistence" on Saturday, sixth-grader Nassen Dawoud said, while her classmate Nada Alwan, said "we can't be like Jews. Saturday is a Jewish holiday and I hope the government listens to us."
The Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, believed to be close to the insurgency, said that by making Saturday a weekend "the invaders, the occupiers are trying to impose their principles" on Iraq.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1109475186190