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.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
Your Talkback on this Story