Police arrest gunman in Kirkuk

KIRKUK / IraqiNews.com: Police forces arrested on Tuesday a man wanted on charges of belonging to the armed group al-Naqshabandiya southwest of Kirkuk, according to the Kirkuk Districts’ Police Department (KDPD) chief. “A force from the KDPD arrested, Youssef Hussein Ahmad al-Assafi, a wanted man in accordance with Article 4 of the law on terrorism in al-Murra village in Riyadh district, southwest of Kirkuk,” Brig. Sarhad Qader told IraqiNews.com news agency. “The operation was waged in light of intelligence information,” he added. Qader noted that al-Assafi, according to intelligence tip-offs from the Kurdish security agency asayesh, is a member of the so-called al-Naqshabandiya group, adding he was referred to the Kirkuk Criminal Investigations Department for questioning. Al-Naqshabandiya, an armed group self-proclaimed after 2003 and composed of officers and soldiers of the former Iraqi army, is loyal to Izzat Ibrahim al-Dori, the vice president of the former Iraqi regime, and active mainly in Kirkuk and its environs. The oil-rich Kirkuk, a city of mixed Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen population, lies 250 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. SH (S)/SR 1