Free Republic

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi authorities captured a senior figure from al Qaeda on Wednesday, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said. Major-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf said the captured man, Nazal Sabar al-Jughaify, also known as Abu al-Jarrah, was a senior lieutenant to the Sunni Arab militant group's leader in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri. Jughaify was captured in the western province of Anbar, and would be brought to Baghdad for questioning, Khalaf said. The U.S. military said it had no information on the capture.

The Gangs of Iraq are killing each other off. What it has come down to is the gangs, militias and organizations that have been making a living planting roadside bombs and carrying out contract hits on American and Iraqi troops for the last three years, are being defeated by tribal and community groups fed up with the constant violence. ... Religious leaders, who often took fees for allowing their mosques to be used as armories and safe houses, also preached against the heretical Shia, who now ruled the country. Now the pro-peace Sunni Arab clergy have displaced the pro-violence imams,...

As sectarian violence soars in Iraq, many Sunni Arab political and religious leaders once staunchly opposed to the U.S. presence here are now saying they need American troops to protect them from the rampages of Shiite militias and Shiite-run government forces. The pleas from the Sunni Arab leaders have been growing in intensity since an eruption of sectarian bloodletting in February, but they have reached a new pitch in recent days as Shiite militiamen have brazenly shot Sunni civilians to death in broad daylight in Baghdad and other mixed areas of central Iraq. The Sunnis also view the Americans as...

A chief of list to legislative in Iraq killed in an attack BAGHDAD - the sunnite Mezher Nagi Al-Doulaïmi, chief candidate to legislative of Thursday in Iraq, was killed Tuesday by shootings of unknown in the rebellious Al-Anbar province, in the west of Baghdad, announced a source of safety. The victim was the chief of the free Party Iraqi progressist, a small formation which introduced three candidates, of which Doulaïmi, with the poll in this province. "Of unknown opened fire on its car with Ramadi (Al-Anbar chief town), killing it and wounding a person who accompanied it", according to...

Baghad — Iraq's largest Sunni Muslim party called Saturday for the release of Western hostages in Iraq, saying such kidnappings tarnish the image of Islam and will have negative effect on those who call for ending the U.S. military presence. The Iraqi Islamic party cited the four members of the Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams — two Canadians, a Briton and an American — who were taken hostage in Baghdad on Nov. 26. The kidnappers have threatened to kill them on Thursday if Iraqi prisoners are not released from American and Iraqi jails.

A major explosion shook central Baghdad Friday morning near an interior ministry building where U.S. troops found detainees showing signs of torture, witnesses said. There was no immediate information about casualties. The blast in the Jadiriyah neighborhood reverberated through the city center, sent a mushroom cloud hundreds of feet into the air and was followed by the sounds of sporadic small arms fire. The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. Earlier this week U.S. troops found up to 173 malnourished detainees, some showing signs of torture, in the building. Most were believed to be Sunni Arabs, the main...