Irak — Iraqi Forces Kill Terrorism Suspects Near Mosul

WASHINGTON, April 20, 2010 — Iraqi secu­ri­ty forces killed a sus­pect­ed al-Qai­da in Iraq leader and an asso­ciate dur­ing a com­bined oper­a­tion con­duct­ed with U.S. advi­sors north­east of Mosul, Iraq, yes­ter­day, mil­i­tary offi­cials report­ed.

The secu­ri­ty forces arrest­ed a third sus­pect dur­ing the oper­a­tion.
The Iraqi forces and U.S. advi­sors searched a build­ing look­ing for Haz­im Ilyas Abdal­lah al-Khafa­ji, also known as Yasir al-Ham­bali, who was believed to be respon­si­ble for attacks against Iraqi civil­ians and Iraqi and coali­tion forces. He had been detained pre­vi­ous­ly, in May 2005, for alleged ter­ror­ist acts against the Iraqi people. 

The secu­ri­ty team encoun­tered gun­fire when it approached the build­ing where the al-Qai­da in Iraq oper­a­tive was believed to be. Iraqi forces engaged the assailants, killing the want­ed man and an asso­ciate. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion and evi­dence gath­ered at the scene led Iraqi forces to iden­ti­fy and arrest anoth­er sus­pect­ed associate. 

In oth­er news from Iraq, Iraqi forces work­ing with U.S. advi­sors arrest­ed two sus­pect­ed al-Qai­da in Iraq asso­ciates dur­ing a com­bined oper­a­tion north­west of Bagh­dad yes­ter­day. The com­bined force searched mul­ti­ple build­ings for a sus­pect­ed al-Qai­da in Iraq leader alleged­ly respon­si­ble for sev­er­al road­side-bomb det­o­na­tions, rock­et-pro­pelled grenade and small-arms attacks, and kidnappings. 

Infor­ma­tion and evi­dence gath­ered at the scene led Iraqi forces to iden­ti­fy and arrest the two sus­pect­ed crim­i­nal asso­ciates of the want­ed man. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)