|
Iraq captures top Zarqawi aide
08/05/2005 21:06 - (SA)
Baghdad - An insurgent who planned an attack on Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and organised a string of suicide car bombs has been arrested, Iraqi and US military forces said on Sunday.
"Terrorist Ammar Adnan Mohammad Hamza Zubaidi, known as Abu Abbas, was arrested on Thursday in a raid in a Baghdad district," the Iraqi government said.
Zubaidi is believed to be responsible for coordinating 40 to 60 insurgents and a double car bomb attack on Abu Ghraib prison, 30 kilometres west of Baghdad, that wounded at least 44 US soldiers and 12 prisoners on April 2.
He later masterminded a string of suicide bomb attacks on April 29 that killed "scores of innocent civilians", the Iraqi statement said.
Zubaidi is believed to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi and US forces said.
The Zarqawi network claimed responsibility for the Abu Ghraib attack and the car bombings.
Documents seized at the time of his arrest indicate Zubaidi was planning to assassinate a government official, the US military said in a statement.
He is also believed to have used 300 to 400 rockets and more than 720 cases of plastic explosives stolen from a weapons depot in Yusufiyah about 20 kilometres south of Baghdad, to make car bombs, the statement said.
Zubaidi admitted giving explosives to Umar al-Kurdi, another insurgent suspect believed to be responsible for 75 percent of the car bomb attacks in Baghdad, the US military said.
The US military found weapons which Zubaidi said he had buried, and destroyed them.
Kurdi is suspected to have constructed about 10 car bombs in a one-month period on a farm before his capture on January 15, the US military said.
Zubaidi's arrest came after police seized Ghassan Mohammed Amine Hussein al-Rawi, a "prince" of the Zarqawi network in Rawa, 350 kilometres west of the capital, on April 26.
The government announced Rawi's arrest on Saturday.
Rawi imposed a rule of terror on the town, where he stole cars to booby-trap them for attacks and kidnapped civilians to finance his operations with ransoms, according to a previous government statement.
- SAPA
|
News
