Al-Qaida's Baghdad bomb chief captured, say Iraqis

Iraqi security forces have arrested a top lieutenant of al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq who was behind 75% of car bombings in Baghdad, the prime minister’s office said today.

Sami Mohammed Ali Said al-Jaaf, also known as Abu Omar al-Kurdi, was arrested during a raid in Baghdad on January 15, a government statement said.

Two other militants linked to Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s terror group have also been arrested, authorities announced today.

Al-Jaaf was “the most lethal of al-Zarqawi’s lieutenants”, the statement said.

And there were reports that US and Iraqi forces were hunting al-Zarqawi, who has a €18.7m bounty on his head, in the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi heads al-Qaida in Iraq, the terror network’s local affiliate. The group is behind many of the car bombings, beheadings, assassinations and other attacks driving the insurgency in Iraq.

Al-Jaaf was responsible for 32 car bombing attacks that killed hundreds of Iraqis, the statement said.

“Abu Omar al-Kurdi claims responsibility for some of the most ruthless attacks on Iraqi police forces and police stations,” said Thaer al-Naqib, spokesman for interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

The statement said the suspect “confessed to building approximately 75% of the car bombs used in attacks in Baghdad since March 2003”, al-Naqib said.

Also today, authorities announced that Iraqi security forces had also arrested a man described as the chief of al-Zarqawi’s propaganda operations.

And in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi forces seized one of al-Zarqawi’s weapons suppliers.