Iraqi forces arrest local al-Qaida leader

Iraqi security forces today said they have arrested the head of an al-Qaida cell in a western Iraqi city, as the US military announced the deaths of two soldiers and a Marine.

Acting on a tip-off, soldiers descended on a building in the city of Rawah, 175 miles north-west of Baghdad, where they arrested local al Qaida commander Abu Muhayyam al-Masri, whose name is a pseudonym meaning, “the Egyptian,” a Defence Ministry official said.