The US army arrested in Baghdad about a half-dozen Iraqis overnight, some of whom were associates of jailed Iraqi former president Saddam Hussein, a military spokesman said Wednesday. "We captured several individuals last night," said Major John Frisbie of the 1st Armored Division. "Some of them were associated wth Saddam Hussein himself."
| That briefcase keeps paying off. Fox News earlier said there were 66 people detained today. |
One of the detainees relayed messages between Saddam and the insurgents waging attacks against the US-led coalition, Frisbie said. The other detainees were financiers and bomb makers who were former members of Saddam's ruling Baath party, he added. Frisbie described the arrests as part of the mass sweeps to round up Saddam followers, based on intelligence gleaned in the wake of the former president's capture December 13 in a small hole on a farm near his hometown of Tikrit. The arrests came as part of an operation, called Iron Grip, whose active phase was launched early Wednesday. A military officer, on condition of anonymity, described Iron Grip as aimed at catching anti-US insurgents in the Baghdad area, with many of the targets culled from log books that the former dictator was carrying with him at the time of his arrest.
| I knew that. The guys getting nabbed also have briefcases... |
Operation Iron Grip has also been marked by the use of artillery and fixed wing aircraft shooting off heavy cannon fire, in a flexing of US military might against their enemy. |