Two al-Qaeda in Iraq prisoners who broke out of a police jail in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi were arrested early yesterday, hours after their accomplice was killed by Iraqi police snipers, police said.
The arrest of the two men brought to an end a dramatic series of events that began early on Friday when the three local al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders escaped from cells in Forsan police station triggering a deadly firefight that killed 13 militants and policemen.
The man shot dead on Saturday by Iraqi forces was Imad Ahmed Farhan, nicknamed “Imad the Killer” because police say the operative had confessed to murdering at least 100 people and setting more than 100 roadside bombs.
Farhan’s accomplices, Abdel Aleem and Lazeem, were arrested in the central Ramadi district of Andaluz early yesterday following a desperate manhunt that lasted nearly two days, Ramadi police major Alaa al-Jassam said.
“They are now being held in a police station in Ramadi,” Jassam said.
Farhan’s accomplices were found hiding in water tanks in a private home, said Udai Mohammed Daud, an intelligence police captain.
“They were arrested on the second floor of a home, hiding in water tanks,” said Daud, adding they had taken the suspects without firing a shot after receiving a tip.
Farhan, 32, was killed by sniper fire around midday on Saturday after a fierce gun battle in which he had taken a family hostage in a home on Street 20 in the center of Ramadi, capital of Anbar Province in western Iraq, police said.
Police had been carrying out a massive manhunt since Friday and found Farhan holed up in a home in central Ramadi. They were alerted to his whereabouts when one of the hostages was able to get word to a neighbor.
“The female hostage got to the back of the house and was able to tell her neighbor that they were hostages and that a terrorist was there,” said Colonel Salah Arar, commander of the southern sector of Ramadi police.
“We took a police unit and a sniper squad with us and we identified the room in the house where he was,” Arar said.
“One of our snipers shot him but only wounded him. Then as he tried to move across the roof from one house to another, one of our snipers shot him five or six times,” he said.
Pictures of a man alleged to be Farhan showed a body riddled with bullet holes.
Police raided the home of Farhan’s sister on Friday and confiscated his passport and his national identity document in case he tried to flee abroad, Ramadi police captain Mohammed Daud said.
Meanwhile, a pair of car bombs killed more than two dozen people on Saturday, shattering a recent period of calm and serving as a grim reminder that recent gains remains fragile as Iraq prepares to take over security responsibilities for much of the country.
The attacks included one in the Baghdad — the first major attack in more than a week — that killed at least 22 people and injured 54.
Although violence has dropped by more than 80 percent around Iraq and particularly Baghdad, the US military has repeatedly said the improved security conditions remain fragile.
Iraq will assume control over much of the country on Thursday under a security pact that replaces an expiring UN mandate. The new agreement gives Iraqi authorities a role in approving and overseeing US military operations and requires that US troops withdraw from Baghdad and other cities by the end of June. They must leave the country entirely by Jan. 1, 2012.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including