11 gunmen, including 2 key AQI members, netted in Diala

DIALA / IraqiNews.com: Eleven gunmen of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), including two amirs (leaders), were captured by policemen in Diala during separate operations in the province, a security official said on Sunday. “Diala police forces conducted an operation in the area of Abu Khamees, Buhrez district, (5 km) south of Baaquba, resulting in the capture of an amir of al-Qaeda called Huzhayfa Munthir Salman,” the province’s police chief, Brig. Abdelhussein Ali al-Shimari told IraqiNews.com. “Other forces managed to arrest a 10-man AQI armed network that was meeting in a house belonging to an amir of al-Qaeda of the name Roukan Hemeidi in Jalawlaa, Khanaqin district, (155 km) northeast of Baaquba,” the source said. Earlier, policemen from Diala captured a man named Abbas Jenniya, an official of al-Qaeda who is in charge of recruiting suicide bombers, in the area of Nahr al-Hejiyam central Baaquba city. Diala province, a mix of Sunnis and Shiites, extends to the northeast of Baghdad as far as the Iranian border. Its capital is Baaquba, 57 km northeast of Baghdad. It covers an area of 17,685 square kilometers (6,828 sq mi). In January 2008 Operation Phantom Phoenix was launched in an attempt to eradicate the remnants of al-Qaeda network following the Diala province campaign between 2006 and 2007. Later on, the Iraqi security forces had launched a wide-scale security campaign in Diala province. The operation, codenamed Bashaer al-Kheir (Promise of Good), is aimed at tracking down members of al-Qaeda network in Diala, Iraq’s most restive city, after the armed group lost its strongholds in the western Iraq predominantly Sunni province of al-Anbar, where tribesmen fought its members and flushed them out of the city.   AmR (S) 1