Hundreds protest detention of Iraqi Shiite leader's son (1st Lead)

Feb 24, 2007, 10:27 GMT

Baghdad - Hundreds of Iraqis demonstrated Saturday against the detention of the eldest son of influential Shiite politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim by US troops, sources said.

Ammar Al-Hakim was taken into custody at the Zirbatyah crossing point between Iran and Iraq along with his security guards on Friday and held for about 12 hours.

Demonstrators gathered in front of the offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SCIRI) in Hillah, some 100 kilometres north of Baghdad, and held signs condemning the US action.

They called on the Iraqi government to take strict measures against the US troops. Hameed Moalah, a Shiite minister close to al- Hakim, said he was not sure what message Washington was trying to send, 'but it is certainly a negative one.'

Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Iraq, issued a rapid apology. 'I am sorry about the arrest. We don't know the circumstances of the arrest and we are investigating. We don't mean any disrespect to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim or his family,' pan-Arab al- Jazeera news broadcaster quoted him as saying.

Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim is the leader of SCIRI, Iraq's largest political group. The bloc carries the strongest voice in the 275-seat parliament.

It also maintains very close ties to Iran, which hosted the elder al-Hakim and other SCIRI officials before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Hillah is mostly populated by Shiite Muslims.

Meanwhile US-led coalition forces detained 12 terrorist suspects during raids Saturday morning, the US military reported.

According to the US military, the raids were aimed at targeting 'foreign fighter facilitators and the al-Qaeda in Iraq network.'

In Fallujah, 70 kilometres west of Baghdad, coalition forces detained a total of seven suspected terrorists while in Mosul, 400 kilometres north of Baghdad, they captured the suspected leader of an al-Qaeda cell.

Another raid in Mosul netted a suspected terrorist with financial ties to al-Qaeda in Iraq. During the raid coalition forces discovered a large quantity of Egyptian and Syrian money as well as false passports and identification cards.

In Amiriyah, 40 kilometres north of Baghdad, three suspected terrorists were detained, including the alleged leader of a local vehicle-borne improvised explosive device cell.