BAGHDAD — U.S. officials said coalition and Iraqi security forces arrested Al
Qaida's leading operative in the Mosul region.
The offiicials said Muhammad Khalaf
Shakar, who was responsible for numerous suicide bombings, was
detained without incident on June 14.
Shakar, wearing a suicide vest when he was captured, was termed the most
trusted Iraqi regional operations chief of Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, Middle East Newsline reported. Officials
said multiple intelligence sources led coalition forces to Shakar's hideout
in a quiet Mosul neighborhood.
"This is a major defeat for the Al Qaida terrorist organization in
Iraq," Air Force Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, a spokesman for the U.S.-led
coalition, told a Baghdad news conference on Thursday. "Zarqawi's leader in
Mosul is out of business."
[On Friday, the U.S. military launched a major operation along the Iraqi
border with Syria. About 1,000 U.S. troops were said to be participating in
Operation Spear, which focused on the Anbar province.]
Officials said Shakar, also known as Abu Talha, has been fully
cooperating with coalition and Iraqi officials. They said that for months
Shakar had been on the run, staying no more than one night at any residence.
"Over the past few months we've had considerable success taking apart
the Abu Talha network in the Mosul area," Alston said. "This success has
included killing or capturing cell leaders, car-bomb makers, financiers,
extortionists, kidnappers, foreign fighters, as well as those Iraqis who
support terrorists."
Al Zarqawi has regional commanders throughout Iraq's Sunni Triangle,
officials said. The commanders were said to operate largely autonomous
networks that ensure their own weapons, munitions, supplies and recruits.
Officials have reported a string of counter-insurgency successes this
week amid a spate of mass-casualty suicide strikes in Iraq. On June 15, the
Iraqi Interior Ministry's 2nd Public Order Brigade
was said to have seized a bomb-making facility in Salman Pak, south of
Baghdad.
U.S. officials have expressed satisfaction with the performance of
several Iraqi military and police units in the Baghdad area. During
Operation Cobra Lightening, which began two weeks ago, Iraq deployed nine
army and seven police battalions -- aided by five U.S. Army brigades.
"The Iraqi army is being extremely effective," U.S. Army Lt. Col. Eric
Wesley, commander of 1st Battalion, 13th Armored Regiment, 1st Armored
Division, said. "They're [insurgents] seeing the Iraqi army in numbers that
they have never seen before, and they are being targeted for this reason."