Iraq government: Bomb mastermind arrested

[Fluffybunny]

Good news...or good timing?

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Iraqi government announced the arrests of several suspected insurgent leaders Monday, including one man they say has claimed responsibility for 32 car bomb attacks since March 2003.

Tha'er al-Naqib, spokesman for interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, said that Abu Umar al-Kurdi was arrested in a raid on January 15. He announced the arrests just days before Iraqis are to go to the polls to elect a legislative council that will write a new constitution.

"Abu Umar al-Kurdi claims responsibility for some of the most ruthless attacks on Iraqi police forces and police stations," said al-Naqib, who said al-Kurdi was responsible for 75 percent of the bombs used in Baghdad attacks in the past two years, including attacks on the Jordanian embassy and the United Nations compound in August 2003.

He also claimed responsibility for a blast that killed Shia religious leader Ayatollah Bakir al-Hakim and more than 100 others at the holy Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf in the same month, al-Naqib said.

The embassy explosion killed 11 people, and the U.N. blast killed 20, including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N. special representative to Iraq.

Al-Naqib also said Monday that Iraqi forces earlier this month captured a man a day after he was put in charge of propaganda for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's organization.

Hassan Hamed al-Doulaimi, captured on January 14, took over propaganda from Hassan Ibraheem, who was killed by U.S. forces the day before, the government spokesman said.

Al-Naqib also announced the detention of Abdul Satar Isma'il and his first assistant, Mohammed Abu Theeb, leaders of a terrorism cell. The pair is charged with transporting terrorists and hiding them after they ran operations and attacks against security and multinational forces, al-Naqib said.

Earlier in the day, the al-Zarqawi group claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb at a checkpoint near the headquarters of interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's party, according to an Internet statement.

Baghdad police said the blast wounded 12 people, including 10 police officers.

The attack took place at a checkpoint outside the National Accord party office in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Harthia.

A representative from the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division said no multinational forces were wounded in Monday's bombing.

The attack, near the heavily fortified Green Zone, is the latest to hit Baghdad in the run-up to elections on January 30, as insurgents try to keep people away from the polls.

On Sunday, an Internet recording claiming to be from the wanted terrorist condemned democracy as "the big American lie" and said participants in the upcoming election are enemies of Islam. (Full story)

The authenticity of the message could not immediately be confirmed by CNN.

"We have declared a bitter war against democracy and all those who seek to enact it," said the speaker in the 35-minute message posted on two Islamist Web sites that have already carried dispatches thought to be from al-Zarqawi.

Fliers bearing a similar message appeared Friday in the northern city of Kirkuk.

The United States has placed $25 million bounties on al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden, whose recent taped messages have endorsed al-Zarqawi's acts of terrorism. (Full story)

The speaker in Sunday's message attacked the interim Iraqi government as a tool used by the "Americans to promote this lie that is called democracy."

U.S. officials have said the military is making every effort to respond to such threats as Iraq's election day draws near.

But American officials have also said they want Iraqi forces to take the lead in securing polling places.

Other developments

The United States is looking into a published report that $300 million in cash was taken from Iraq's Central Bank and flown to Lebanon to purchase weapons from a mysterious source, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" on Sunday.

A fire broke out Sunday in the al-Nasiriyah general hospital, killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 80 others, a local government official told CNN. The fire was due to an electrical fault, as technicians forgot to switch off the hospital's main generator, causing the fire to begin in the generator. Al-Nasiriyah is about 320 kilometers (200 miles) south of Baghdad.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara said Sunday if insurgents are crossing the nation's border into Iraq to battle U.S. and Iraqi government forces, they do so without the blessing of his government. U.S. officials assert that Syria is cooperating with terrorists, allowing some to cross the border with impunity. "If they cross any bordering state to Iraq, it is against the will of the government of Syria," al-Shara said on CNN's "Late Edition" with Wolf Blitzer.

Top Iraqi officials disputed reports that former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed Chalabi would be arrested soon, despite Defense Minister Hazem Sha'alan's claim Friday that Chalabi, a political rival, would be taken into custody by Interpol. (Full story)

Eight Chinese hostages held by a group calling itself the "Islamic Resistance Movement" in Iraq have been freed, an official from the Chinese Embassy said Saturday. (Full story)

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[Mekorig]

Things are spicy down in the tigris river....