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[jmhollen]

Just like playing with rows of dominoes................

Iraqi most-wanted's nephews captured
2004-01-15 / Associated Press

U.S. forces moved a step closer to the most wanted man in Saddam Hussein's former regime yesterday, detaining his four nephews in a pre-dawn raid in the central city of Samarra.

The arrest comes as U.S. officials released figures showing that Saddam's capture had taken some of the sting out of the Iraq insurgency.

But hours later, a car bomb exploded in front of a police station in the central Iraqi city of Baqouba. Police said three people, including the bomber, were killed. The U.S. military put the death toll at five. All the victims were Iraqis.

Two of the nephews arrested yesterday are suspected of helping to hide their uncle, former Iraqi Vice President Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri. Al-Douri has a US$10 million bounty on his head and is suspected to have been orchestrating insurgent attacks on U.S.-led coalition forces.

"One of these days his head will rise up above the water, and we will be able to capture him as well," Lieutenant Colonel David J. Poirier of Chicago told an Associated Press reporter who observed the raid.

The U.S. military thinks two of the detained men may have been helping find safehouses for Ibrahim, but it would give no further details on the suspects.

The arrests came as figures released by U.S. military officials indicated that guerrilla attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq have dropped sharply since Saddam's capture on December 13. The number of troops killed and wounded has plummeted as well.

But one top U.S. military official said guerrilla attacks were already on the decline before Saddam was found hiding in a coffin-sized bunker near his hometown of Tikrit.

"We were starting to see the decrease in the attacks prior to the capture of Saddam," said Brigadier General Mark Hertling, a deputy commander of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division. He also said casualties have not declined in the capital, Baghdad.

Fifty-two coalition troops were killed and 159 wounded in the four weeks before Saddam's capture, November 13 to December 12. In the following four weeks, to January 13, the figures dropped to 37 soldiers killed and 128 wounded, U.S. military officials in Baghdad said Tuesday. That amounts to 29 percent fewer deaths and 20 percent fewer combat injuries.

The figures don't include accidental deaths and injuries.

At the Pentagon, Marine General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it was too early to tell whether the drop in attacks and casualties was "something that is going to remain or not."

While opinions differ on Saddam's role in the insurgency and whether his capture caused any rebels to give up, most U.S. officials who have spoken publicly agree on one benefit: More Iraqis are willing to provide intelligence on the insurgency. Military officials have said many Iraqis are no longer worried about the possibility of Saddam returning.

http://www.etaiwannews.com/World/2004/01/15/1074139165.htm
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