BAGHDAD, April 2, (Agencies): US and Iraqi troops have killed or arrested at least six suspected al-Qaeda leaders allegedly involved in an extortion and assassination ring in northern Iraq, the US military said.
The suspected militants were killed or arrested in security operations from March 18 to 24 in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad and an al-Qaeda stronghold, it said in a statement late on Thursday.
The suspects were accused of involvement in an extortion and assassination network that helped fund al-Qaeda around Mosul. Its targets included oil companies and small businesses, the statement said.
Those killed were identified as the al-Qaeda emir of northern Iraq, Khalid Muhammad Hasan Shallub al-Juburi; economic security emir Abu Ahmad al-Afri; and the suspected al-Qaeda governor of Mosul, Bashar Khalaf Husyan Ali al-Jaburi.
The military said three top suspected oil-extortion figures were among a dozen people arrested on March 24 in a security sweep.
“Without these individuals in the AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) network, it is expected that AQI’s ability to operate and restructure will be severely hindered,” it said.
Meanwhile, supporters of anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr stood in long lines on Friday to vote their choice for prime minister of Iraq in a two-day referendum that carried no government sanction or legal weight.
The unusual plebiscite organised by Sadr’s political movement, which won about 40 seats in a March 7 parliamentary election and stands to play a kingmaker role in the next government, was intended to determine the public favourite for prime minister after squabbling among election winners.
The ballot carried five names including current Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his top election rival, former prime minister Iyad Allawi, whose Iraqiya coalition edged Maliki’s State of Law bloc 91 seats to 89 in the election.
Neither won enough for a majority in the 325-seat parliament and the tight race foretold weeks or months of potentially divisive negotiations to form a new government.
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“According to political developments, a mistake might occur in choosing the next prime minister, and for that I think it is in the (national) interest to assign it directly to the people,” Sadr, who is living and studying in Shiite neighbour Iran, said in a statement read to his followers before Friday prayers.
Sadr’s political movement announced the vote just two days ago and although all Iraqis were invited, it was unclear how widely the ballots were available beyond Sadrist strongholds. Encircled by Iraqi soldiers in Sadr City, the Baghdad slum where Sadr’s support is probably strongest, worshipers lined up at a chaotic tent at the movement’s office. They scrambled to cast votes before the call to prayer, dictating their choices to party poll workers who wrote the votes on ballots.
The forms carried the names of five candidates; Maliki, Allawi, vice president Adel Abdul-Mehdi, former prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Jaafar Mohammed al-Sadr, a Sadr relative, plus a write-in space for a candidate of the voter’s choice.
“This is a successful process because it is the people’s choice. He who wins will be adopted by us,” said retiree Ghazi Hiawi al-Bidhani, 57.
Jasim Ali, 42, a government employee, said the vote would prevent sectarian issues from interfering with the choice for prime minister.
“I do what Moqtada al-Sadr asks us to do,” he said. “Allawi and Maliki didn’t provide any services to the people. We want a person who serves the people.”
The voting was scheduled to last through Saturday.
A leading Iranian-backed Shiite party offered support for a secular candidate for prime minister in Iraq — a major blow to the incumbent Nouri al-Maliki.
It was the latest boost for Ayad Allawi, whose bloc has emerged as the front-runner to form a new government after parliamentary elections that left him just two seats ahead of al-Maliki’s mainly Shiite list.
The announcement by Ammar al-Hakim, who heads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, came hours before followers of anti-US cleric al-Sadr voted in an unofficial referendum on which candidate their movement should support.
In another development, the US military is scrambling to finish what it calls the largest movement of troops and equipment since the buildup of World War II as it draws down in Iraq and ramps up in Afghanistan.
The Third Army commander, Lt Gen William G. Webster, told Pentagon reporters Friday the top priority is to keep moving the planned 30,000 troops and their supplies that President Barack Obama has ordered into Afghanistan to bolster the fight against the insurgency there.
Speaking from Kuwait, Webster said the military is moving as fast as it can on the massive and complex job. There are roughly 3 million pieces of equipment in Iraq, including 41,000 vehicles and trailers.
Some of the equipment will remain in Iraq; some will be returned to the United States to be used for troop training; some will be reconfigured for use in Afghanistan.
Webster said officials expect to be able to move the more than 5,000 vehicles needed for the Afghanistan buildup into that country by the end of the summer.
Meanwhile, twenty-three prisoners including suspected insurgents escaped from a detention centre in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Friday, security officials said.
“The detainees, including some accused of terrorist acts, escaped from a detention centre run by Nineveh province security forces in south Mosul,” a police official told AFP.
“All were arrested at different times, and none had yet been judged,” he added.
He said the escapees managed to scale a wall, but another security source indicated a hole had been made in a cell wall before the men fled via a toilet block window.