2 arrested, 3 caches seized in Kirkuk

KIRKUK / IraqiNews.com: A combined force arrested two persons and seized three arms caches in different areas in Kirkuk province on Thursday, according to a senior security official. “An Iraqi-U.S. force conducted on Thursday (Feb. 18) a search campaign in the village of al-Sulaimaniya, Sarkarn district, (55 km) western Kirkuk, arresting two persons,” Brig. Sarhad Qader, the director of the Kirkuk Districts’ Police Department (KDPD), told IraqiNews.com news agency. He added that one of the two men is wanted by the Criminal Investigations Department in accordance with Article 4 of the law on terrorism while the other one is wanted by the Army Intelligence Corps. “The force also seized three weapons caches, one of them near the village of al-Mahouz, al-Huweija district, the second in al-Riad district and the third near the al-Hai al-Sina’ie neighborhood, southwest of Kirkuk,” said Qader. He noted that the caches contained dozens of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), hundreds of shells and other munitions. “The campaign was carried out in light of an agreement between the Iraqi army forces’ 12th Division and the KDPD personnel under the supervision of U.S. forces in Kirkuk,” he said. Qader elaborated that the campaign, launched on February 10 and continue until February 20, aims to provide safe atmosphere for the people of Kirkuk to participate in the forthcoming Iraqi parliamentary elections, scheduled to be held on March 7. The oil-rich Kirkuk, a city of mixed Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen population, lies 250 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. AmR (S) 1