Monday, October 6, 2008 Free Headline Alerts
BAGHDAD — The U.S. military has killed an operative said to have masterminded suicide attacks around Baghdad.
The U.S. military said Mahir Ahmed Mahmoud Al Zubaydi was killed in Baghdad's Sunni district of Adhamiyah in what officials termed a significant blow to the Sunni insurgency network. The military said Al Zubaydi, also known as Abu Assad, was killed along with an unidentified woman on Oct. 3 in a shootout with U.S. forces.
"His removal from the AQI [Al Qaida in Iraq] network will send shockwaves through Baghdad's terrorist bombing networks," U.S. military spokesman Adm. Patrick Driscoll said.
[In Mosul, at least 11 people, most of them civilians, were killed in a U.S. military strike in Mosul. The military said it had targeted an Al Qaida stronghold in the northern city.]
The military, in a statement on Oct. 4, said Al Zubaydi planned mass-casualty strikes in Baghdad that killed hundreds of people. This included the suicide car bombings in Baghdad on Oct. 2 in which at least 24 people were killed.
Officials said Al Zubaydi targeted Shi'ites as well as foreign diplomats. They said he masterminded the abduction and execution of Russian diplomats in 2006 in Baghdad. A video showed Al Zubaydi shooting one of the Russians.
Al Zubaydi, formerly of Ansar Al Islam, was linked to the Al Qaida leadership, officials said. They said he selected targets and helped assemble car bombs and suicide bomb vests.
"He allegedly ordered and directed a car-bombing attack May 1 that killed one American soldier and wounded three soldiers and three Iraqi civilians," the U.S. military said. "Detainee reporting puts him at the scene of the crime."
Meanwhile, Iraq's government has demanded accountability from the security forces amid a spate of Al Qaida suicide bombings.
Officials said Prime Minister Nour Al Maliki has warned that he would dismiss or transfer military and police commanders who fail to ensure security around Baghdad and other key cities. They said Al Maliki has ordered investigations into several Al Qaida suicide bombings in the Iraqi capital in September 2008.
"Senior commanders will be called to take responsibility for breaches of security," an official said.
On Oct. 2, Al Maliki fired a senior military commander responsible for a portion of the Baghdad region. The commander was said to have headed the Iraq Army's First Brigade, which oversees police operations in much of Baghdad. The U.S. military has reported an 80 percent drop in insurgency attacks in Iraq since June 2007. Officials said the decline stemmed from the erosion of the Al Qaida network in such provinces as Anbar, Baghdad and Diyala.
"We are respectful of AQI as a threat, but we will continue to degrade their capability and prevent them from destabilizing the great progress being achieved by Iraqi security forces and Coalition forces here," U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Daniel Allyn, chief of staff of Multi-National Corps-Iraq, said.
In an Oct. 2 briefing, Allyn said the military has disrupted the flow of Al Qaida fighters from neighboring Syria. He said the U.S.-led coalition has also blocked the arrival of insurgents and weapons from Iran. On Oct. 5, a convoy that contained Western contractors was bombed in the southern city of Basra.
"We continue to focus on preventing Iran from supplying lethal accelerants that are intended to destabilize the government and also preventing foreign fighters from crossing the boarder from Syria," Allyn said. "As we look down the road at deeper threats that face this country, enabling Iraq to secure its own boarders is essential to their long-term stability."