Hardline Sunni Cleric Arrested in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S. troops, have arrested a hardline Sunni cleric and about two dozen others after a raid of his Baghdad mosque uncovered weapons caches along with photographs of recent attacks on American troops, the U.S. military and the Iraqi National Guard said.

Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, the head of the Supreme Association for Guidance and Daawa, a conservative Sunni organization, was detained Thursday, along with 25 others, the U.S. military said.

The raid took place at the Um al-Tuboul mosque, a major landmark in western Baghdad, said Iraqi National Guard Col. Mohammed Abdullah said, who said the cleric and 27 others had been detained

The U.S. command said American troops "provided the outer cordon" while the 90-minute raid was carried out by Iraqi troops. Two U.S. soldiers were wounded by snipers during the raid, the military statement said.

Abdullah said they also found TNT explosives, lists with names of Iraqi officers employed in the U.S.-trained Iraqi National Guard, as well as photographs of recent attacks on U.S. soldiers and foreign convoys on the airport road.

The raid followed a tip that weapons were being stored in the prominent mosque, Abdullah said.

Also discovered in the raid were Kalashnikov rifles, one machine gun, four rocket-propelled grenade launchers and ammunition.

Footage taken by Associated Press Television News showed Al-Sumaidei taken out of the mosque, sitting in handcuffs, surrounded by American troops and turning his face away from the camera.

Al-Sumaidaei has called on the country's Sunni minority to launch a civil disobedience campaign if the Iraqi government does not halt the attack on Fallujah, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad.

He had told The Associated Press Thursday that military operations in Fallujah amounted to a "war on the Sunni people of Iraq (news - web sites)" and urged students and government employees to mount a "civil strike" by staying at home if the attacks don't stop.

Also Thursday, U.S. troops had raided the homes of two other Sunni Muslim clerics critical of the Falluajh offensive.

One raid was directed at the home of Harith al-Dhari, head of the Association of Muslim Scholars, about 20 miles west of Baghdad. U.S. troops confiscated five guns belonging to mosque guardsmen and a mobile phone.

Also, U.S. troops searched the home of Sheik Abdul-Salam al-Kobeisi in Baghdad, another association member.

The scholars ' association, with some 3,000 clerics nationwide, is considered the most influential Sunni group in Iraq. It hardened its opposition to the U.S. presence in Iraq and has called for a nationwide boycott of the January elections to protest the Fallujah attack.

Al-Sumaidaei has called on the country's Sunni minority to launch a civil disobedience campaign if the Iraqi government does not halt the attack on Fallujah, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad.

This guy would have been better off keeping his mouth shut. What was he thinking? He's sitting on a cache of weapons in his mosque calling for jihaad in fallujah? He drew a target on his back!

LMAO @ the Stealth Terrorist

Oh yeah, Good Post and Welcome to FR!!

I pickup up the following from broadsword, from another thread. It belongs here, too.

Weapons in a mosque? Why, I'm shocked! SHOCKED I tell ya!

Let's get the Islamic terminology straight, once and for all:

Mosque = Terrorist Barracks

Red Crescent Ambulance = Munitions Supply Truck

Radical Muslim = REAL Muslim who follows the Koran

Moderate Muslim = A Trojan horse who quietly smiles and nods his head at the terrorists

Koran = a call to terror, murder, oppression, slavery, misogyny and backward culture

Infidel = all non Muslims and Muslims who are not on jihad (all doomed to die)

Holy Lands = all lands unfortunate enough to be or ever have been under the heavy yoke of Muslim terror, murder, oppression, slavery, misogyny

Islamic Pride = an insanely jealous hatred for every other culture that has left Islam groveling in its own seventh-century dust.

CAIR = Crying Arabic Islamic Retrogrades

Minaret = Satan's Jukebox - or - Howling Hell Tower

Burkha = Misogynistic Mobile Women's Prison

Muslim Chaplin (U.S. Armed Forces) = Turncoat Brigade Recruiter

Rape = something the guys get to do, especially to those hottie infidel chicks! (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)

Modern Technology = "Huh? Oh yes, that stuff the evil infidels make and maintain for us to use for to kill them."

Allah = the Moon God, whose most important representative here on earth is that meteorite worshiped in Mecca

Little Boys = a man's pleasure machines

Paradise = a giant rape orgy for you - if you die while ruthlessly murdering innocent unsuspecting infidel women and children

U.S. Armed Forces = things to run away from or kill with booby-traps, unless you can take a cheap shot at them and then hide behind women and children or hide in a Mosque.

Christian Church = firewood

Synagogue = firewood

Buddhist Temple = firewood

Hindu Temple = firewood

Confucian Church = firewood

Jewish Restaurant = Bomb Demolition Depot

Holy site = anything Muslim, unlike those giant Buddhist statues in Afghanistan that were precious to Buddhists. “We blew those up real good! Heh, heh!”

Truce = a chance to regroup and kill more infidels later

Liberalism = the societal AIDS virus that stops the infidels from fighting Islam off

The American Democratic Party = The Islamonazi’s best hope to destroy America, the great Satan!

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