US military says slain militant is senior al-Qaeda figure (Roundup)

Oct 14, 2007, 13:48 GMT

Baghdad - A militant killed during an operation in Mosul Saturday has been positively identified as a senior al-Qaeda militant known as Abu Doha, the US military said Sunday.

Meanwhile violence occurring Sunday and Saturday elsewhere in Iraq killed a total of 11 people and wounded dozens more.

'Along with kidnapping, Abu Doha and his associates were reportedly involved in weapons facilitation and coordinating attacks against Iraqi security and (US-led) coalition forces,' a statement from the military said.

'Abu Doha is also known to have numerous terrorist associates, including a key leader with ties to Syrian-based terrorists and the inner circle of al-Qaeda in Iraq's senior leadership,' it added.

The US military alleged that Abu Doha reportedly received his orders directly from Abu Ayub al-Masri, the head of the al-Qaeda network in Iraq.

Meanwhile, a senior officer from the Salahaddin police department told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa Sunday that an attack the previous night in Samarra, 125 kilometres north of Baghdad, killed four civilians and wounded 40, including two policemen.

During a late-night car chase where police forces were hunting down a suspect, he detonated his explosive-laden vehicle on a road leading to the police department of Samarra.

Authorities imposed a curfew on vehicles, which remained in effect Sunday - but sources from Samarra told dpa that people had been urging the authorities to lift this in order for them to transfer the wounded to other better-equipped hospitals in the vicinity.

At least four civilians were killed in clashes and 17 suspected gunmen arrested in southern Iraq, police sources said.

Iraqi police and army forces clashed with gunmen during raids launched early Sunday on a residential area in the village of Qariyah al-Asriyah, 50 kilometres north of Hillah in Babil province.

The civilians were hit during the firefight, in which four vehicles also caught fire. An indefinite curfew was imposed on the village following the clashes, police said.

In another development, an Iraqi was killed in the area of Hashimiyah, south of Hillah, during a raid by gunmen on an office belonging to the Sadr faction.

The group, loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, has a wide network across Iraq and representative offices in different cities.

The gunmen had reportedly opened fire on the office, independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) said, citing a police source from Babil department. The shooting resulted in the death of the individual who was standing in the front yard outside the office.

In a separate act of violence, a police officer was killed and two were wounded when their patrol was hit by an explosion near Khuwailis village, police sources told dpa.

The same source said that a former Iraqi officer was gunned down in Baquba, 60 kilometres north of Baghdad. The motive behind the attack was not immediately known.

Also in a village near Baquba, local authorities said 10 unidentified bodies were found - two of women. The bodies were riddled with gunshot wounds and bore signs of torture.

News reports said around 65 families had to flee their homes in the northern Diyala province during the past two days following repeated death threats from extremist armed groups.

The families belong to the tribes of al-Jouraniyya, Bani Tamim and al-Izzat dwelling in the so-called Sheikh Tamim River villages, a local security official told VOI.

A spokesman for the Diyala Salvation Council, Sheikh Sabah Shukr al-Shamri, said the families received threats signed by Jassim al- Kahly, allegedly a leader of the extremist group.

Al-Kahly reportedly demanded that all residents of the Sheikh Tamim River villages leave within three days.

Beginning mid-June, the threatened villages, which lie east of Baquba capital of Diyala province, have witnessed frequent clashes between security forces and al-Qaeda militants.