2 wanted men arrested, explosives seized in Basra

BASRA / IraqiNews.com: Two wanted men were captured while C4 explosives were seized and an improvised explosive device dismantled near a mosque in northern Basra province on Friday, a police spokesman said. “Two wanted persons were arrested during a search raid in different areas of Basra,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. “The bomb squad seized a bag containing 25 kg of C4 explosives and TNT and defused an IED weighing 5 km in the area of al-Ablah, (8 km) northern Basra, near the mosque of Ali al-Safi, a top aide of Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani,” the source said. The oil-rich port city of Basra lies 590 km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. AmR (P) 1