Iraq
Kurdish troops fired on an Iraqi Army helicopter as it traveled north of Kirkuk; no casualties were reported. President Talibani has been hospitalized for a stroke.
Kurdish troops fired on an Iraqi Army helicopter as it traveled north of Kirkuk; no casualties were reported. President Talibani has been hospitalized for a stroke.
Thirty-two Iraqis were killed and more than 100 were wounded in a series of bombings and attacks across the country. The attacks targeted the Army, police, and Shiites.
Insurgents killed six people in bombings in Kirkuk at two mosques and a TV station associated with Shia Muslims. Two more people were killed in a bombing at Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party office in Jalula.
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Insurgents killed four Iraqi soldiers in an IED attack in Al Zawiyah. Police killed an al Qaeda fighter and wounded two more in Mosul, and prevented an attack on a train station south of Tikrit.
Al Qaeda fighters killed an Army regimental commander west of Mosul and three policemen in Mosul. Security forces detained two insurgents in Fallujah.
Iyad al Tubasi is thought to have been killed in Daraa. He is believed to have been replaced by Abu Anas al Sahhaba, another associate of former al Qaeda in Iraq emir Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
Five units in Western Aleppo that are linked to the Al Nusrah Front vowed “to establish the Islamic Khilafah state, and to use it to end decades of colonization and enslavement.”
The central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government agreed on a plan to deescalate the situation in Kirkuk. A suicide bomber killed himself and two prisoners at an entrance to a prison in Baghdad. Security forces raided an al Qaeda media center in Mosul.
Security forces captured an al Qaeda commander near Mosul, four al Qaeda fighters in Fallujah, and three Ansar al Sunnah fighters in Kirkuk. A court sentenced three al Qaeda commanders and four fighters to death for kidnapping and executing 26 men in Anbar.
The US government called the Al Nusrah Front “a new alias” for al Qaeda in Iraq, and said Al Nusrah is under the direct control of the emir of the Iraqi terror group.
Security forces destroyed an al Qaeda in Iraq camp in the Al Jazeera desert in Ninewa province. A joint Army and police force captured a top al Qaeda judicial figure in Mosul.
Al Qaeda fighters killed the Awakening’s military commander for Mahmoudiyah and his wife; four suspects have been detained. Security forces detained two al Qaeda fighters in Baghdad.
The Islamic State of Iraq denied that its emir, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, was captured. A court sentenced two al Qaeda leaders to death. Security forces arrested 12 al Qaeda fighters in Fallujah and nine more in Wasit.
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The al Qaeda political front said that Abu Bakr al Baghdadi al Husseini al Qurshi “is in the best state of being among his family and his brothers.”
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Iraqi security officials have claimed that Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq and its Islamic State of Iraq, has been captured. The reports of Baghdadi’s arrest have not been confirmed.
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“Gunmen” kidnapped 20 Iraqi police recruits at a cafe in Bayji. The recruits are thought to have been taken to Anbar province near the border with Syria; al Qaeda is suspected of carrying out the operation.
Abubakar Shekau said he and his fighters support jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Algeria, Libya, and Mali.
Insurgents killed seven members of a family, including five sleeping children, in Tarmiyah, and two soldiers in Fallujah. A court in Dhi Qhar sentenced al Qaeda in Iraq’s emir for Basrah to death.
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