Senior Qaeda Figure in Iraq Is CapturedBy RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: September 3, 2006BAGHDAD, Sept. 3 — Iraq’s national security adviser said today that American and Iraqi troops had captured a senior Al Qaeda figure who supervised the perpetrators of the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra in February that set off a wave of brutal sectarian violence.
In a statement on national television, the adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said that Hamid Juma Faris Jouri al-Saeedi, who was described as the second-ranking Al Qaeda leader in Iraq, had been captured in the past few days at an undisclosed location as he hid among Iraqi families in a residential building. Mr. Rubaie said Mr. Saeedi had been operating near Baquba, north of Baghdad, in the area where the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had sought refuge before he was killed by an American airstrike three months ago.
Mr. Rubaie described Mr. Saeedi as Al Qaeda’s deputy commander in Iraq, serving beneath Abu Ayub al-Masri, the man who took over the organization after Mr. Zarqawi’s death. If that characterization is true, it would suggest Mr. Saeedi is the most senior Al Qaeda leader killed or captured since Mr. Zarqawi died when an American fighter jet bombed his safe house in June.
