A senior Al Qaeda operative is captured

WASHINGTON -- A senior Al Qaeda operative and several figures from an associated terrorist group have been captured in Iraq by local Iraqi and US forces, a senior administration official said yesterday.

Hassan Ghul, described as the most senior associate of Osama bin Laden found in Iraq, was picked up last week in the northern part of the country by Kurdish forces, the official said. "He was a senior facilitator who was caught coming into the country," the official said. Speculation was that Ghul, a Pakistani, was scouting out what Al Qaeda could do in the future against US forces, the official said.

Ghul has been part of Al Qaeda for at least a decade and was known to deliver money to terrorist groups in the Middle East and Africa.

In separate action in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, US troops last week raided a facility and captured Husam Yemeni and several associates who were identified as figures within Ansar Islam, the terrorist group that was once located in northern Iraq but moved south after the US invasion.

Ansar is headed by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has been accused of masterminding the October 2002 assassination of Lawrence Foley, a US official in Jordan who was working for the US Agency for International Development.

Ansar has been identified as the major terrorist group operating against US forces inside Iraq, and Yemeni is the highest-ranking member who has been captured.