Explosions and automatic fire echoed across Baghdad early yesterday as an aide to deposed Iraq leader Saddam Hussein's right-hand man was arrested in Mosul.
The most intense military activity in the capital for weeks may be related to an operation known as Iron Justice and "may involve explosions and aerial activity," a military spokeswoman said.
In intense activity in Iraq's northern capital of Mosul on Tuesday, US forces arrested a childhood friend of Saddam Hussein's fugitive right-hand man, considered one of the masterminds of the deadly anti-US insurgency, relatives and an Iraqi security force member said.
The aide to Izzat Ibrahim was identified as Sheikh Ghazi Hanash, head of the influential Tayy tribe. He was detained at his Mosul home along with three of his sons, said relatives of the sheikh and Waadallah Tewfik Hassan, an Iraqi Civil Defense Corps member who participated in the raid.
A firefight ensued that killed one of the sheikh's bodyguards and wounded his daughter.
Ibrahim, Saddam Hussein's deputy in the Baath Party, is suspected of forging an alliance with Islamic extremists in battling the eight-month-old, US-led occupation.
Following Saddam's arrest on Dec. 13, Ibrahim, who suffers from leukemia, is the most senior former Iraqi official still at large.
The US military put a US$10 million price on his head and is eager to capture the last of Saddam's henchmen and silence the resistance once and for all.
Despite Saddam's arrest 10 days ago and a military sweep to round up fighters, anti-US insurgents continued their attacks.
A private security guard was wounded on Tuesday when insurgents ambushed a US military convoy delivering new Iraqi money to a bank in Mosul.
A rocket-propelled grenade hit a Humvee, wounding an employee from Global Security, which is under contract to accompany shipments of the new currency around Iraq, said Major Hugh Cate of the 101st Airborne Division.
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