Iraqi officials report arrest of al-Qaida figure in Mosul

BAGHDAD -- A man suspected of being al-Qaida in Iraq's chief leader in Mosul, the terror network's most prominent urban stronghold, was arrested Monday, more than a week after he fled a security crackdown in the northern city, Iraqi officials said.

The U.S. military said it was looking into the report. Reports of high-level al-Qaida in Iraq arrests in the past have sometimes proven inaccurate.

Maj. Gen. Ahmed Taha, of the Iraqi Interior Ministry, identified the detainee as the terror group's "wali" -- or "governor" -- in Mosul, a title that would make him its top figure in the city and in Ninevah province, where the city is located.

A security official involved in the detention said the suspect, Abdul-Khaliq al-Sabawi, admitted in questioning to being the Mosul wali.

Al-Sabawi, a former brigadier in Saddam Hussein's military, fled Mosul before the crackdown was launched more than a week ago and took refuge in the Sunni Arab city of Tikrit in Salahuddin province, 120 miles to the south, the official said.

Confessions by other militants captured in Mosul during the sweep led security forces to his hiding place, and he was brought back to Mosul for interrogation, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the arrest.

Some of Mosul's al-Qaida figures, particularly its top leaders, are believed to have fled or stayed out of the city before the well-publicized sweep -- the latest in a series of high-profile operations launched by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki over the past two months to break the hold of armed groups around the country.

More than 1,300 people have been arrested in and around Mosul during the current operation, though 240 were cleared of suspicion and released, said Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, the deputy interior minister for intelligence and security affairs.

The U.S. military has described Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, as al-Qaida in Iraq's last urban stronghold after the group lost control of cities in the western province of Anbar over the past year. Al-Qaida militants and other Sunni Arab insurgents have used Mosul, a key transport hub with highways to Baghdad and Syria, for suicide bombings and other attacks in northern and central Iraq in recent months.

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces have been carrying out targeted raids on suspected militants in the city. But the sweep has seen almost no clashes, a sign insurgents are seeking to lay low or escape. The Defense Ministry reported the first death in the crackdown, saying raids Monday left one militant dead, along with 78 people arrested. The ministry statement gave no details on how the death occurred.

Al-Maliki ordered the Mosul sweep after similar crackdowns against Shiite militiamen in the southern city of Basra and Baghdad's Shiite stronghold of Sadr City. The Basra crackdown, which began in late March, sparked a wave of violence by Shiite militias across the south.

The intensified fighting has been calmed by fragile truces. But skirmishes, raids and sporadic attacks have continued.

The past two days saw a string of attacks on police blamed on Shiite militiamen.

Gunmen in Sadr City attacked Lt. Col. Ahmed Muhsin al-Nouri, a police intelligence officer, as he headed to his office Sunday morning, and he died the following day of his wounds, an Interior Ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

In southern Iraq, Lt. Col. Farhan Qassim, the police chief of the town of Suq al-Shiyoukh, was killed Monday by a bomb that exploded in his office, police in the nearby city of Nasiriyah said. The police officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared becoming targets themselves.

The town, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, was the scene of heavy fighting April 19 between police and members of the Mahdi Army, the militia of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The clashes left 22 people dead.

Monday's attack was the latest sign of infiltration of police by Shiite militiamen. A week ago, a bomb detonated in the province's main police command in Nasiriyah, wounding two officers. Four policemen were arrested soon afterward.

Iraqi solders and police launched raids Monday in four neighborhoods of the southern city of Basra a day after militiamen killed a policeman and wounded three others at a checkpoint, Basra's operations command Maj. Gen. Mohammed Jawad Huwaidi said. He said there had been arrests but did not say how many.

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Associated Press writer Hamid Ahmed contributed to this report.