Iraq says captures No. 2 al Qaeda leader

By Ibon Villelabeitia

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. and Iraqi forces have arrested the
second most senior figure in al Qaeda in Iraq, National
Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said on Sunday.

“I can say al Qaeda in Iraq is severely wounded,” he told a
news conference.

He named the man as Hamed Juma Faris al-Suaidi, also known
as Abu Humam or Abu Rana, and said he was the deputy to Abu
Ayyub al-Masri, who took over the insurgent group after Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. air strike in June.

The U.S. military says Sunni Islamist al Qaeda is a “prime
instigator” of sectarian conflict between Iraq’s Sunni minority
and Shi’ite majority that threatens all-out civil war, but that
it has been left reeling by U.S. and Iraqi operations that have
killed or captured scores of its militants in recent weeks.

But despite the U.S. and Iraqi military successes, violence
continues to tear Iraq apart.

A 63-page Pentagon report said on Friday attacks rose by 24
percent in the past three months. Iraqi casualties soared by 51
percent and the violence was extending north beyond Baghdad.

The announcement of the arrest came as talks between the
United States and Iraq over the transfer of operational command
of Iraq’s armed forces remained deadlocked, with Prime Minister
Nuri al-Maliki demanding more independence from the U.S.
military.

A day after the dispute forced an embarrassing delay of a
signing ceremony in Baghdad, an Iraqi Defense Ministry source
said disagreements remained over the wording of a document that
outlines the new relationship between U.S.-led occupying forces
and Iraq’s military.

“There are some disputes between the two parties. We have
our own point of view and they have theirs. We want thorough
control and want the freedom to make decisions independently,”
the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

HIDING

Rubaie said al Qaeda leader Suaidi was captured a few days
ago but did not say where in Iraq he was found.

“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 told a news conference.

U.S. military spokesman Major General William Caldwell said
this week that U.S. and Iraqi security forces were enjoying
success in “the systematic disruption and disorganization of
the al Qaeda in Iraq network.”

He said operations in August against the group, blamed for
some of the deadliest suicide bombings in Iraq, had involved
more than 140 assaults in which at least 17 suspects were
killed and more than 300 detained.

Exposing an increasingly bitter rift between Arabs and
Kurds, Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki issued a stern
rebuke to ethnic Kurds on Sunday over a ban on flying the
national flag over Kurdish government buildings.

Reacting to the ban on flying the Iraqi tricolor, Maliki’s
office issued a statement that not only defended the national
flag but implied that the Kurds’ own banner was illegitimate.

“The Iraqi flag is the only flag that should be raised over
any square inch of Iraq,” read the brief message, which did not
refer directly to the controversy.

(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin, Alastair Macdonald,
and Mussab Al-Khairalla)