Posted on 06/23/2006 3:18:20 AM PDT by bd476
CNN
Iraq: Transition of Power
U.S. military: Top al Qaeda member captured
Friday, June 23, 2006; Posted: 5:36 a.m. EDT (09:36 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Less than two weeks after al Qaeda in Iraq leader Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike, coalition forces detained a senior member of the terrorist network, according to the U.S. military.
A military statement Friday did not identify the man who was captured during a raid on Monday. That raid came two days after another senior member of the network -- Mansur Sulayman Mansur Khalif, also known as Sheikh Mansur -- also was killed in a coalition airstrike.
Monday's raid took place southwest of Baquba, not far from where al-Zarqawi's safehouse -- north of Baquba -- was bombed on June 7.
The man detained along with three other suspected terrorists "is reportedly a senior al Qaeda cell leader throughout central Iraq, north of Baghdad," the military statement said.
"He is known to be involved in facilitating foreign terrorists throughout central Iraq, and is suspected of having ties to previous attacks on Coalition and Iraqi forces," it said.
The military said the raid also turned up an AK-47 and several magazines of ammunition that the coalition forces destroyed on site.
Several women and children, who were present at the sites of the raid, were all returned to their homes, unharmed, after the forces determined the area was secured, the statement said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Too funny! He's a damn traitor.
"Jack Murtha is deeply troubled."
Yep, American success in Iraq is his worst fear.
Sad, but true.
Joined by those two other military experts....McCain and Kerry.
A senior al Qaeda in Iraq leader, Mansur Sulayman Mansur Khalif, also known as Sheikh Mansur, was killed Friday when coalition forces targeted a vehicle in which he and two others were riding, military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said Tuesday. Mansur led various cells in the Yusufiya area south of Baghdad, Caldwell said.
Military: Senior member of al Qaeda network killed - CNN 6/20/2006
BAGHDAD (CNN) -- A man described as a "very senior member of the al Qaeda network" was killed by coalition forces Friday, U.S. military officials said Tuesday.
Mansur Sulayman Mansur Khalif, also known as Sheikh Mansur, was killed when coalition forces targeted a vehicle in which he and two others were riding, spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said Tuesday. "They attempted to flee. Coalition forces pursued them and during that time engaged the vehicle and destroyed it."
Mansur, he said, was a leader of al Qaeda in Iraq "with excellent religious, military and leadership credentials within that organization." He was tied to the senior leadership of the organization, Caldwell said, and had relationships with leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a U.S. airstrike earlier this month, and Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who the military believes replaced al-Zarqawi as the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq. (Posted 10:54 a.m.)
Dabaan is a top mufti, or religious authority, for most of Iraq's minority Sunni Muslim community, which was dominant under Saddam Hussein and now forms the backbone of the insurgency against the Shi'ite-led government.
His arrest came the day before Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is expected to present a national reconciliation plan to end sectarian tensions and defuse a Sunni insurgency.
An Iraqi security source at the joint Iraqi-U.S. coordination center in Tikrit 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad said Dabaan had been arrested along with two sons.
The Iraqi Islamic Party said another religious leader who had been a guest in Dabaan's home, Sheikh Abdalilah al-Hiti, was also arrested.
The U.S. military said it had not known beforehand that it was Dabaan's home and they had since released him. They made no mention of his sons or Hiti.
The deputy governor of Salahaddin said earlier that most provincial government offices had suspended work in protest at the arrest of Dabaan and were refusing to return to work until he was freed.
The U.S. military said one of the suspects detained was "directly associated with several senior-level al Qaeda members and reportedly plays an important role in the network between Baquba and Tikrit."
http://www.redorbit.com/news/general/549018/us_raid_sparks_outrage_among_sunnis/index.html?source=r_general
I think you are correct as far as your assessment goes, but the other half of plan for the WOT is to establish an overwhelming force in the ME for future needed operations. As our President has explained many times, this is a longterm strategy.
A New York Times story that ran in a number of papers today claims that Al-Mansour and other upscale neighborhoods outside the Green Zone are being encroached on by "insurgents" (always "insurgents," with Pinchy Sulzberger's rag).
Although we can't trust the Times not to spin the story grossly, it sounds like the good guys are just too thin to keep the Ba'athists or Al Q'aeda or Sunni militias or whoever it is from attriting local security in much the same way the Viet Cong did in 1961-1968 before the Hanoi politburo expended them in the two big offensives of 1968, Tet and the summer offensive, after which they basically ceased to exist and their place in the enemy OOB was taken by line units of the NVA, which thereafter began to operate in regimental and brigade strength.
In their case it would be more like "IRAQ SAFE HOUSES SAFE BUT DANGEROUS."
Jimmy Carter's theory too. No human presence needed. We are just now starting to recover from his policy. By the fall of 2002, we hadn't, which is why we went into Iraq in Mach of 2003, right?
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