Wanted man arrested west of Samarra

SALAH AL-DIN / IraqiNews.com: Iraqi forces detained a wanted man with weapons in his possession west of the city of Samarra on Sunday, a local security source said. “During the early hours of Sunday (March 15), Iraqi forces arrested Sayed Qassem al-Abbasi, one of the most wanted persons, in al-Jazerah area, 35 km west of Samarra,” Col. Ismail Khalaf Jassem of the Samarra Operations Command (SOC) told IraqiNews.com news agency. “Abbasi, a member of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), was arrested based on intelligence tip-offs that he was inside a mud-brick house,” he added. Samarra, a city in Salah al-Din province, lies 120 km north of Baghdad. Jassem noted that Abbasi was arrested without any resistance, adding a large machine-gun, RPG-7 launchers and small and medium arms and munitions were seized in his possession. Salah al-Din is 175 km north of the Iraqi capital. AmR (P) 1