Region | Iraq
US military says rogue Shiite leader caught in western Baghdad
US troops on Monday captured a breakaway Shiite militia leader suspected of being a powerful criminal boss and providing Iranian weapons to militants in western Baghdad, the military said.
- AP
- Published: 22:37 February 18, 2008
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Baghdad: US troops on Monday captured a breakaway Shiite militia leader suspected of being a powerful criminal boss and providing Iranian weapons to militants in western Baghdad, the military said.
The arrest occurred a day after a US military spokesman said that, in the past week, Iraqi and US forces had captured 212 weapons caches around the country, with growing evidence of an Iranian link.
"This is a significant capture of a top special groups leader," said Navy Captain Vic Beck, a military spokesman.
'Special groups' is a term the US uses to describe Iranian-backed Shiite militias it says have broken with anti-US cleric Moqtada Al Sadr and refused to follow his cease-fire order. The military said in a statement that intelligence reports led troops to the suspect, who was not identified, and he and another suspect were arrested without incident.
The main suspect was reportedly in charge of all Shiite militia fighters in western Baghdad. The area west of the Tigris River that divides the capital has been a Sunni stronghold but has seen an increased Shiite presence with sectarian cleansing that peaked after the February 22, 2006, bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra.
The military said the suspect was responsible for providing weapons to militia members, including armour-piercing bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, which US officials say come from Iran. Tehran denies the allegations.
The man also allegedly selected fighters for paramilitary training and was an associate of other senior criminal leaders involved in attacks on US and Iraqi security forces, the military said.
Ceasefire
Al Sadr pledged last year that his Mahdi Army last year would abide by a six-month ceasefire that has helped substantially decrease violence in Iraq, and that expires at the end of this month. But rogue groups have spun away from his organisation and are receiving both Iranian training and weapons, including the EFPs, the US says.
Rear Adm Gregory Smith, a US spokesman, said on Sunday that the military has seen an increase in the use of weapons by Iranian-backed Shiite militants. Many of the caches had been in Iraq for some time and Smith declined to link them to an increased flow of weapons into the country, but he said training and financing of the groups continues.
"In just the past week, Iraqi and coalition forces captured 212 weapons caches across Iraq, two of those coming from here inside Baghdad, with growing links to the Iranian-backed special groups," he said Sunday at a news conference.
"The Iranian-backed special groups in particular are volatile in the sense that they receive specific training inside of Iran," Smith added. "What we don't know precisely is whether or not there's any direction coming from Iran as to how they conduct their operations inside of Iraq. We do think that the training and financing of those activities remain in place."
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki spent the weekend touting the successes of the security operation that began one year ago and peaked last summer with the influx of thousands of US troops.
The operation helped restore some security to a country that in January 2007 was on the brink of civil war. Smith said insurgent attacks had declined by 60 per cent over the past year.
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