Iraq — Iraqi Forces Kill Terrorism Suspect, Arrest 21 Others

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2, 2010 — Iraqi secu­ri­ty forces killed a sus­pect­ed ter­ror­ist and arrest­ed 21 oth­er ter­ror­ism sus­pects in var­i­ous recent oper­a­tions in Iraq, mil­i­tary offi­cials report­ed.

South­west of Mosul yes­ter­day, Iraqi forces killed a sus­pect­ed mem­ber of the Jaysh Rijal Tariqah al-Naqsha­ban­di ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion and arrest­ed two others. 

The Jaysh Rijal Tariqah al-Naqsha­ban­di orga­ni­za­tion took shape after the Decem­ber 2006 hang­ing of for­mer Iraqi dic­ta­tor Sad­dam Hussein. 

Iraqi forces and U.S. advi­sors were search­ing for a leader of the ter­ror group who has ties to oth­er group lead­ers. When Iraqi forces entered a build­ing in which the sus­pects were locat­ed, a man pre­tend­ing to be asleep reached for a pis­tol under his pil­low and engaged them, and Iraqi forces killed him. Analy­sis of his fin­ger­prints deter­mined that he had been detained pre­vi­ous­ly for attack­ing Iraqi and coali­tion forces. 

Infor­ma­tion and evi­dence at the scene led Iraqi forces to iden­ti­fy and arrest the want­ed ter­ror­ist leader and a sus­pect­ed crim­i­nal associate. 

In Jalu­lah yes­ter­day, Iraqi forces work­ing with U.S. advi­sors arrest­ed two sus­pect­ed al-Qai­da in Iraq crim­i­nal asso­ciates while search­ing for a sus­pect­ed mem­ber of the ter­ror­ist group who alleged­ly is involved in assas­si­na­tions, kid­nap­pings, insur­gent financ­ing and imor­tar and bomb­ing attacks. Iraqi forces had arrest­ed anoth­er sus­pect­ed asso­ciate of the want­ed man July 31. 

Also yes­ter­day, Iraqi forces work­ing with U.S. advi­sors arrest­ed a sus­pect­ed Kataib Hezbal­lah ter­ror­ist group mem­ber and three sus­pect­ed crim­i­nal asso­ciates in Hussaniyah. 

In east­ern Mosul on July 31, Iraqi forces work­ing with U.S. advi­sors search­ing for a sus­pect­ed al-Qai­da in Iraq mem­ber who alleged­ly has direct involve­ment in the facil­i­ta­tion and man­u­fac­tur­ing of vehi­cle bombs and road­side bombs arrest­ed a sus­pect­ed crim­i­nal asso­ciate of the want­ed man. 

In a sep­a­rate July 31 oper­a­tion in east­ern Mosul, Iraqi forces work­ing with U.S. advi­sors who were search­ing for the same man arrest­ed 12 oth­er sus­pect­ed crim­i­nal associates. 

On July 30 in east­ern Mosul, Iraqi forces work­ing with U.S. advi­sors arrest­ed two sus­pect­ed crim­i­nal asso­ciates while search­ing for a sus­pect­ed al-Qai­da in Iraq leader who alleged­ly has close ties to senior lead­er­ship of the ter­ror­ist organization. 

In oth­er news, U.S. Forces Iraq offi­cials released a state­ment that dis­putes reports that July was the “dead­liest month in Iraq since 2008.” 

The state­ment specif­i­cal­ly chal­lenged reports that 535 peo­ple were killed in Iraq dur­ing July. “The actu­al total num­ber of peo­ple killed in Iraq for the month is 222 due to ene­my action, and the num­ber of wound­ed is 782, for a total of 1,004 casu­al­ties,” the state­ment said. 

That total, the state­ment con­tin­ued, includes 161 civil­ians who were killed and 526 who were wound­ed. Fifty-five mem­bers of Iraqi secu­ri­ty forces were killed and 201 were wound­ed, offi­cials said, and one U.S. sol­dier was killed and 27 were wound­ed in hos­tile action. 

Secu­ri­ty inci­dents in July ranked third-low­est, U.S. casu­al­ties ranked sec­ond-low­est, civil­ian casu­al­ties ranked ninth-low­est and Iraqi secu­ri­ty forces casu­al­ties ranked 10th-low­est, result­ing in total casu­al­ties for July rank­ing eighth-low­est of all months since Jan­u­ary 2008, offi­cials said. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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