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Insurgents Who Killed Five GIs in Brazen Karbala Attack Captured
BAGHDAD The U.S. military said Thursday it had captured the leaders of a Shiite insurgent network responsible for one of the boldest and most sophisticated attacks on American troops since the Iraq conflict began four years ago. The statement said the arrests took place over the past three days in the cities of Basra and Hillah south of Baghdad. The military said the network was led by Qais Khazaali and his brother Laith Khazaali. Several other members of the network also were captured.The network was "directly connected" to the killing in January of five American soldiers in the holy city of Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, the military said. In the Jan. 20 attack, gunmen speaking English, wearing U.S. military uniforms and carrying American weapons abducted four U.S. soldiers at Karbala's provincial headquarters and later shot them to death. A fifth soldier was killed during the attack. Making the bad guyz liable to execution on the spot for violation of the laws of war. In an AP report Wednesday, two senior commanders from the Mahdi Army Shiite militia identified Qais al-Khazaali as the leader of up to 3,000 fighters who defected from the Mahdi Army militia and were now financed directly by Iran and no longer loyal to firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "Yeah. Nebber hoid of 'em!" Al-Khaazli is a cleric in his early 30s. The tall and slender man was a close al-Sadr aide in 2003 and 2004. He was al-Sadr's In the days after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, al-Khazaali led groups of young clerics loyal to al-Sadr who protected his native Sadr City, the teeming Shiite district in eastern Baghdad, against looters and worked to restore basic services. In Washington Wednesday, a Pentagon official who declined to be identified because of the information's sensitivity, confirmed that some gunmen had gone to Iran for training and that al-Khazaali has a following. However, the official could not confirm the number of his followers or whether Iran was financing them. The two Mahdi Army commanders blamed several recent attacks on U.S. forces in eastern Baghdad on the splinter group they said was led by al-Khazaali. They also said they believed the breakaway force had organized the attempt last week to kill Rahim al-Darraji, Sadr City's mayor. Al-Darraji, who is close to the Sadrist movement, was involved in talks with the U.S. military about extending the five-week-old Baghdad security sweep into Sadr City, the Mahdi Army stronghold in eastern Baghdad that was a no-go zone for American forces until about three weeks ago. Al-Darraji was seriously wounded and two of his bodyguards were killed Posted by: Sherry 2007-03-23 |
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