Thursday, June 29, 2006

Golden Mosque Attack Leader Captured

Those who say the Iraqi insurgency is a home-grown affair might wish to read this report by Omar at Iraq the Model on the capture of the leader of the plot to blow up the Samarra Mosque:

In a news conference currently being broadcast on TV, Iraq's national security advisor Muwaffak al-Rubaie says Iraqi security forces arrested Abu Qudama al-Tunisi in a raid in the suburb of al-Dhuloiya north of Baghdad. 15 other foreign terrorists were killed in the raid according to al-Rubaie.

The terrorist of Tunisian origin confessed that he was responsible for the attack that destroyed the Askari Shrine in Samarra back in February 22 of this year. Muwaffak al-Rubaie said the security forces are still searching for Haitham al-Badri who is believed to be the field commander under whom Abu Qudama was operating.

Al-Rubaie described Al-Badri is a terrorist with connections to elements in the past regime who later became one of the leaders of Ansar al-Sunna and later al-Qaeda organization in Iraq.

Al-Rubaie adds that this terror cell was responsible for the assassination of the late al-Arabiya reporter Atwar Bahjat.

Al-Rubaie described how the bombing was organized and says details were taken from the confessions of the captured Abu Qudama:

Four Saudis, two Iraqis and one Tunisian entered the mosque at night, handcuffed and locked up the guards in a room and spent the night planting the bombs all around the mosque. Next day they kidnapped and murdered Atwar Bahjat while she was trying to cover the news of the bombing.

So, the captured leader was Tunisian, the perps were predominately Saudi and the fifteen killed in the raid were described as "foreign" terrorists. At least this cell sounds like it enjoyed enough diversity to delight the administrators at any American university.