Iraq: Top Qaeda militant is captured

Report isn't confirmed by US military

Abu Hamza al-Muhajer is the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi police announced early today the capture of Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, the leader of the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, but the US military said it could not confirm the report.

Iraqi officials said Muhajer was apprehended yesterday morning after he was found sleeping during a midnight raid of a house in the northern city of Mosul. Muhajer confessed his identity in an interrogation, said Major General Abdel-Karim Khalaf, a Ministry of Interior spokesman.

Muhajer is believed to be an Egyptian, about 40 years old, and an associate of Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri. He is believed to have taken over the leadership of Al Qaeda in Iraq after the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a US air strike in June 2006. Iraqi officials reported in May 2007 that Muhajer had been killed. His capture yesterday, if true, would be an important boost for Iraqi security forces but may not signify the end of Al Qaeda in Iraq's presence in the country. Since Zarqawi's death, the organization has continued a campaign of killing while pushing its strict interpretation of Islam.

In recent weeks, suicide bombers acting in a manner consistent with previous attacks by Al Qaeda in Iraq have struck funerals, wedding parties, and police and military checkpoints. The attacks chiefly target Sunnis who have joined forces with the US military.

Also yesterday, militia leaders loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr vowed to resist efforts by Iraqi and US forces to relocate residents of some of the most violent parts of Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood to camps.

For a month, the densely populated Shi'ite enclave on the capital's eastern edge has served as a battleground in clashes between Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and the joint fighting force drawn from the US military and Iraqi security agencies. The battles have generally been taking place in the southwestern quadrant of the rectangular district, an area believed to be the launching site of most rockets targeting the heavily fortified Green Zone.

Abu Mustafa and Abu Bader, local Sadrist leaders and militia fighters, said Iraqi soldiers were telling people to leave Sadr City and go to tents set up at two nearby soccer stadiums. They also said soldiers had distributed leaflets telling residents in certain sectors to clear out. Abu Bader, who spoke on the condition he be identified only by his nickname, said people were resisting.

"We have tribal tradition," he said. "We are not going to send our families to stay in stadiums and soccer fields. There is no way we are going to put our people at the mercy of Americans and the Iraqi national guard."

Abu Bader cited American detention practices, and the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in particular, as the source of people's fears.

Major Mark Cheadle, a US military spokesman, said he was unaware of a campaign to remove residents. "We don't know anything about that," he said.

Abu Mustafa reported "light clashes" with American and Iraqi forces yesterday, saying that patrols had been sent deeper into the district from multiple directions. The patrols turned back, he said, after being confronted by Mahdi Army fighters.

Also yesterday, fighters launched two rockets from Sadr City that struck a home in central Baghdad, killing two Iraqi civilians and wounding eight others, the US military said.

In Salahuddin Province, north of Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed Mulla Nadhum al-Aswadi, a leader of the US-backed Sunni force known as the Awakening, who was traveling in a convoy with the police chief in the town of Duluiyah.