Iraqis Arrest Man They Say Is Zarqawi's Top Bomb Maker

[seriousstan]

AGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 24 - Iraqi security forces have captured a top bomb maker working for the most wanted insurgent in the country, an Iraqi government spokesman said today.

The announcement came hours after a suicide car bomb exploded near the headquarters of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's political party, injuring at least 14 people, nine of them policemen, an interior ministry spokesman said. The bomb detonated at a checkpoint guarded by a special unit of the Iraqi police.

The captured bomb maker, Sami Muhammad Ali Said al-Jaaf, was seized in a Baghdad raid on Jan. 15 and is believed to have taken part in three-quarters of the car bombings in the capital since the war began, the spokesman, Thaier al-Nakib, said in a written statement. Large-scale car bombings here began with an attack on the Jordanian embassy in August 2003; they have killed hundreds and left streets strewn with carnage and debris.

Mr. Nakib said Mr. Jaaf also goes by the nom de guerre of Abu Omar al-Kurdi and is considered the "most lethal lieutenant" of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who has a $25 million bounty on his head
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/international/middleeast/24cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1106629200&en=b229797585c1b5fc&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[sweetbutterfly]

1. This is good news

for the U.S. and other Allies there....hopefully it will slow down some of the homocide bombers.

[rzemanfl]

2. Isn't it a coincidence that they capture this "top bombmaker" a

few days before the "election?" It is not as if the British captured Wehrner Von Braun in 1942 or the Germans nabbed Enrico Fermi or Robert Oppenheimer, these are car bombs. Lots of people know how to wire explosives.

[two gun sid]

3. I heard on the news......

he was responsible for 75% of the car bombs in Baghdad. The next story was how a car bomb had just gone off in Baghdad.

[htuttle]

4. Didn't they bust this guy two weeks ago?

Or is this Iraq's second biggest bombmaker?

:shrug:

I wonder how many legs this guy has?

[rzemanfl]

5. If this guy was as important as they make him out to be, they'd

never have announced he was taken alive. Wherever Zarqawi was, if this guy was close to him, he isn't there anymore.

[Moderator]

6. duplicate topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1178085