MUHAMMAD ZIMAM ABD AL-RAZZAQ AL-SADUN
Baath Party Regional Command Chairman for Ta'mim Governorate
Iraqis Seize No. 41 on U.S. Wanted List
By SAMEER YACOUB, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi police on Sunday arrested No. 41 on the American military's most-wanted list, Baath Party official Mohammed Zimam Abdul-Razaq. He was the party's regional chairman in the northern provinces of Nineveh and Tamim, which include the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
Meanwhile, insurgents attacked two U.S. convoys less than a mile apart in Baghdad, and American soldiers in one incident opened fire, killing one Iraqi driving nearby and wounding six others, witnesses and hospital officials said.
The violence came as Iraqi security officials investigated one of the most sophisticated guerrilla attacks yet — a bold daylight assault Saturday by dozens of fighters on a police station in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, in which 25 people were killed, most of them policemen.
A U.S. military police officer was among more than 30 people wounded, said Col. William Darley, a military spokesman.
Police caught Abdul-Razaq at one of his homes in western Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said. He was the four of spades in the military's "deck of cards" of top fugitives — leaving 10 still at large from the most-wanted list of 55.
Pictured shortly after his arrest, Mohammed Zimam Abdul Razaq, left, is displayed to journalists inside an office of the Iraqi Interior Ministry while new Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Kadhum Ibrahim speaks, in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2004. Iraqi police on Sunday arrested Abdul Razaq, a former Iraqi Baath Party chairman who was one of 11 fugitives still at large from the U.S. military's list of the 55 most wanted members of Saddam Hussein's regime, at one of his homes in a suburb of Baghdad. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)
In Qaim, near the Syrian border about 200 miles northwest of Baghdad, U.S. troops backed by tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles clashed Sunday with Iraqi gunmen. There were no reports of casualties. Residents said gunmen attacked the Americans in retaliation for a U.S. operation against suspected smugglers the day before.
Also on Sunday, the military said an 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper died when his vehicle overturned near Baghdad a day earlier. The soldier's name was not released.
There were conflicting reports who may have been behind the Fallujah attacks.
Police claimed foreigners — Arabs or Iranians — were involved and that two of four attackers killed in the battle had Lebanese identification papers. Rumors spread in the city that an Iraqi Shiite Muslim militia with links to Iran, the Badr Brigade, was to blame.
But a U.S. officer in Baghdad said the attack's sophistication pointed to former members of Saddam Hussein's military.
The assault involved simultaneous attacks: One group of gunmen overran the police station, freeing dozens of prisoners being held there, while a second team pinned down Iraqi security forces at a nearby compound with a half-hour barrage of fire to prevent them from helping the policemen.
On Sunday, a roadside bomb went off as a U.S. military patrol passed by in western Baghdad, causing no injuries. The American soldiers opened fire wildly in response, shooting three vehicles, witnesses said. One Iraqi was killed and six wounded, hospital officials said.
"I was driving near the U.S. convoy when I heard an explosion. Then the U.S. soldiers randomly opened fire," said Kadhum Salih, a teacher who was wounded in the left hand.
About a half-mile away, gunmen attacked a U.S. convoy on a highway at about the same time, setting one of the vehicles ablaze. Witnesses said U.S. soldiers pulled three wounded people from the stricken SUV.
The convoy was made up of a military Humvee and two sport utility vehicles, the sort used by American civilians and officials in Iraq. The SUV was heavily burned, its hood pockmarked with bullet holes. The U.S. command had no reports of casualties.
Insurgents have launched a series of bloody attacks in the past week, thought to be part of an escalation aimed at wrecking U.S. plans to transfer power to the Iraqis on June 30.
The handover has hit political storms as well, with the United States under heavy pressure to change its method for picking a new government. U.S. administrators want local councils to choose a legislature, which in turn would name a government to rule until elections in 2005.
A prominent Kurdish leader said Saturday he expects the U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council to take power June 30 if elections for a legislature cannot be arranged.
"We think that elections are the best way to express the opinions of the Iraqi people," council member Jalal Talabani said. "We expect the Governing Council to receive sovereignty if no provisional government is established or no elections are held."
Talabani spoke after meeting with Iraq's top Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, who holds enormous influence among Iraq's Shiite majority and has demanded elections.
In response, a U.N. mission is in Iraq to explore whether elections were possible. A spokesman for the U.N. team sided with the United States and said it was unlikely a vote could be organized by June 6.
But the head of the team, Lakhdar Brahimi, said major changes were needed in the U.S. plan for picking a government to satisfy Iraqi leaders. American officials say they're open to changes in the formula, which calls for regional caucuses, but have not said how far they're willing to go.
When it transfers sovereignty, the United States wants to give Iraqi security forces greater responsibility in battling the insurgency. But Saturday's attack in Fallujah raised questions about how prepared Iraqis are to face the guerrillas, who have kept up attacks despite the Dec. 13 arrest of Saddam.
The attack occurred at the end of a bloody week in which about 100 people were killed in suicide bombings at a police station in Iskandariyah and an army recruiting center in Baghdad. Those attacks and the Fallujah raid suggest an insurgent campaign against key institutions of the U.S.-backed Iraqi administration.