Topic: U.S. troops arrest insurgent leader linked to market attack that killed 51

Team Infidel

Media: The Associated Press
Byline: n/a
Date: 13 August 2006


BAGHDAD, Iraq_The U.S. military on Sunday announced the capture of an
insurgent leader, who was responsible for an armed attack on a market last
month that left more than 50 people dead.

The insurgent was arrested Thursday by soldiers of the 502nd Infantry
Regiment, 101st Airborne Division during a cordon and search operation in
Baghdad, a military statement said. It did not identify the insurgent, but
described him as a "key terrorists cell leader."

He "is directly linked" to the July 17 attack on a local market in
Mahmoudiya, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Baghdad, the statement
said.

In the Mahmoudiya attack, suspected Sunni gunmen opened fire on shoppers and
vendors in a market, killing at least 51 people and injuring more than 70.
Most of the dead were Shiites, victims of the sectarian violence sweeping
Iraq.

"This is the third top member of this violent and elusive terrorist cell we
have detained in recent weeks," Col. Todd Ebel, commander of the 2nd
Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, was quoted as saying in the statement.

On Friday, U.S. soldiers arrested 60 men from a Sunni neighborhood in
Baghdad, known to be a stronghold of insurgents. They included members of an
al-Qaida-affiliated cell that "specializes in bomb making" and carried out
car bomb attacks in the capital, the U.S. command said.

About 1,000 people are being killed every month in the Baghdad area alone in
the Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence, which has become a new security
challenge to U.S. and Iraqi military trying to control a three-year-old
insurgency by loyalists of Saddam Hussein.

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