A Bit of Good News

[Annie]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/06/16/iraq.main/index.html

U.S. military: Al Qaeda leader in Mosul captured
Abu Talha 'gave up without a fight'




BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. military on Thursday reported the capture of a man described as al Qaeda's leader in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Donald Alston identified him as Abu Talha -- whose actual name is Muhammad Khalaf Shakar -- and said he was captured on Tuesday.

"Talha has been one of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's most trusted operations agents in Iraq," Alston said. "This is a major defeat for the al Qaeda organization in Iraq."

"Numerous reports indicated he wore a suicide vest 24 hours a day and stated that he would never surrender. Instead, Talha gave up without a fight," Alston said.

Talha surrendered tomultinational forces in a quiet neighborhood in Mosul, Alston said, after information from Iraqi civilians contributed to his capture.

Civilians providing such information indicates they are taking steps against the "increasingly unpopular insurgency," he said.

Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi, wanted by U.S.-led forces for terrorist attacks in Iraq, pledged his allegiance to Osama bin Laden in October. The United States has posted a $25 million bounty for al-Zarqawi's capture or death.

Also on Thursday, a car bomb exploded at an oil facility in Kirkuk and wounded at least five Iraqi soldiers, an Iraqi military commander said.

The bomb, apparently targeting an Iraqi army convoy, hit an entrance to the Northern Oil Co., a state-run company responsible for the drilling, transport, and refining of Iraqi crude.

In Baghdad on Thursday, a remotely detonated car bomb wounded five Iraqi soldiers and an Iraqi civilian, Iraqi police said.

On Baghdad's airport road, a suicide car bomb struck a police commando patrol Thursday, killing four commandos and wounding 22, police said.

The attack vehicle was a BMW carrying at least 200 kilograms of explosives, police said.