Assistant to Zarqawi arrested
Iraq-USA, Politics, 7/14/2005

The US army announced that its forces arrested in Baghdad one of the main aides to the leader of al-Qaida organization in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

This was expressed by the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Meyers, who explained in an interview with aid on PBS' "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" that Abu Abd al-Aziz, who is described as a main leader of al-Qaida organization, was arrested. Meyers said "It's still a very dangerous insurgency. I think we're seeing about the level of efforts that they're capable of. We're having pretty good success against pieces of this. Just yesterday on the battlefield, we picked up Zarqawi's main leader in Baghdad, they call him the Amir of Baghdad, Abu Abd al-Aziz and that's going to hurt that operation of Zarqawi's pretty significantly."

Meyers was asked "But would you understand, General, why people would be a little skeptical? We've heard this before, Zarqawi's right hand man, Zarqawi's number three, this number of people, and the thing we keep hearing, all the insurgency has been broken, it's just a bunch of dead-enders, they're in the throes of whatever, and then 60 people die." Meyers replied to Jim Lehrer "You never heard Dick Myers ever say the insurgency has been broken. This -- insurgencies take time to break. They're broken by the political process. It's my view that the driver now is the political process and the success that Iraq has in developing its constitution, referendum and then elections; that's what's going to beat the insurgency. In the meantime our job is to go after the insurgents, particularly those that have worldwide connections, Zarqawi being in al-Qaida, and we know he has instructions to work outside of Iraq, a very dangerous individual with very dangerous murdering associates."

Meyers admitted that armed operations in Iraq reached its peak, but he said that the coalition forces are achieving successes against certain members of the insurgency.

Al-Qaida organization in Iraq did not indicate that any of its key leaders in Baghdad was arrested. However, it did attack, in a message on a website, the Shiites in Iraq and blamed them for supporting the "Crusaders."

Previous Stories:
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  Jafaari refuses to schedule US withdrawal from Iraq   (7/13/2005)
  Jafaari refuses to schedule US withdrawal from Iraq   (7/13/2005)
  Sunday Times: Allawi: Iraq may be on verge of civil war   (7/11/2005)
  Iraq' ambassador accuses US Marines of intentionaly killing his cousin   (7/2/2005)
  Mujahideen army downs US Apache plane   (6/28/2005)
  Rumsfeld warns Iraq neighbors against medical care to Zarqawi   (6/2/2005)
  The Guardian: achieving peace in Iraq could take at least five years   (5/26/2005)

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