U.S. & Iraqi Troops Nab Another Senior Al Qaeda Leader

Our guys are definitely on a roll. Another senior leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq was captured south of Kirkuk earlier today and over a dozen other al Qaeda fighters captured as well.
One thing is clear...U.S. and Iraqi forces are really starting to clean out leadership of al Qaeda further north. Kirkuk is about 200 to 250 km north of Baghdad. At the same time, you KNOW these captures are the results of tips from the general population. Al Qaeda in Iraq is finding that they have little secrecy anymore and as I've said earlier, if we keep pinging and capturing these leadership types, the guts of al Qaeda in Iraq will just leave.

My guess is that the leader's identity will come out either later today or sometime tomorrow.

Full story is here.

Senior al-Qaeda leader arrested near Kirkuk

Kirkuk, Dec 26, (VOI)- A joint force of Iraqi and U.S. personnel on Wednesday detained nine suspected gunmen, including a senior al-Qaeda leader, southwest of Kirkuk, a police source said."A police force, backed by U.S. troops, waged in the wee hours of the morning a crackdown operation in al-Howaiyja district, southwest of Kirkuk, where it arrested eight suspected gunmen," the source, who asked to remain anonymous, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).Meanwhile, the same source said "joint forces captured a senior al-Qaeda leader during a security plan launched in al-Safra village in Riyadh district, southwest of Kirkuk.""The operation ended without casualties among the forces," he underlined."At dawn, joint forces waged another security operation in al-Wasati neighborhood in southern Kirkuk in search for unlicensed weapons," the source said."The operation ended this morning with the confiscation of large amounts of unlicensed weapons," he noted.