You would not WANT to be in the shoes today of Abu Omar al-Kurdi, a senior aide to of leading militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — captured today by Iraqi forces and undergoing intense and perhaps even creative interrogation.
The reasons:
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The elections are coming up and Zarqawi has basically declared war on the elections and on democracy. Now Iraqi forces have his right hand man.
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Iraq’s security forces know their prisoner can be a gold mine of information if they can just persuade him to talk. And from the report below it’s clear he has (we boldfaced the section below for you).
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It’s an arrest that helps shatter the image Zarqawi and his decapitating crew have nurtured of a shadowy group that never gets caught and can do whatever they want without real consquences.
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At the least it’ll likely force Zarqawi to operate more carefully and perhaps not as brazenly as his group bombs, kidnaps and decapitates to get its message across and scare voters away from the polls.
Details of the arrest:
The seizure of Abu Omar al-Kurdi, accused of masterminding some of the worst car bombings in Iraq, appeared to be a major breakthrough for the authorities ahead of next Sunday’s historic election, which Zarqawi and his followers have vowed to disrupt.
Abu Omar, also known as Sami Mohammed al-Jafi, was seized in a raid in Baghdad on January 15, the government said on Monday in a statement released six days before the election.
He is blamed for over 30 bombings including the attack on the U.N. headquarters in August 2003 which killed special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 20 others, and a blast in Najaf the same month which killed 80, including a top Shi’ite cleric.
"Kurdi has confessed to some 75 percent of the car bombs that were used for attacks in Baghdad since March 2003 and to making the explosives used in the attack on the Jordanian embassy in August 2003," said government spokesman Thair al-Naqib.
The government said Abu Omar had received instructions from Zarqawi to carry out a series of bomb attacks on election day — precisely the sort of assault the government, opposition figures, voters and international observers fear.
Iraq’s electoral commission has said 14 million of Iraq’s 27 million people could go the polls on Sunday, creating what the U.N. has described as the biggest security and organisational challenge since Saddam Hussein’s fall.
The announcement of Abu Omar’s arrest and that of another senior militant, Nayef Abbas al-Zubaydi, came hours after a suicide car bomb struck near Allawi’s party office in central Baghdad, injuring 10 people.
The seizure of Abu Omar al-Kurdi, accused of masterminding some of the worst car bombings in Iraq, appeared to be a major breakthrough for the authorities ahead of next Sunday’s historic election, which Zarqawi and his followers have vowed to disrupt.
Abu Omar, also known as Sami Mohammed al-Jafi, was seized in a raid in Baghdad on January 15, the government said on Monday in a statement released six days before the election.
He is blamed for over 30 bombings including the attack on the U.N. headquarters in August 2003 which killed special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 20 others, and a blast in Najaf the same month which killed 80, including a top Shi’ite cleric.
"Kurdi has confessed to some 75 percent of the car bombs that were used for attacks in Baghdad since March 2003 and to making the explosives used in the attack on the Jordanian embassy in August 2003," said government spokesman Thair al-Naqib.
The government said Abu Omar had received instructions from Zarqawi to carry out a series of bomb attacks on election day — precisely the sort of assault the government, opposition figures, voters and international observers fear.
Iraq’s electoral commission has said 14 million of Iraq’s 27 million people could go the polls on Sunday, creating what the U.N. has described as the biggest security and organisational challenge since Saddam Hussein’s fall.
The announcement of Abu Omar’s arrest and that of another senior militant, Nayef Abbas al-Zubaydi, came hours after a suicide car bomb struck near Allawi’s party office in central Baghdad, injuring 10 people.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.