US forces in Iraq said yesterday they had arrested two leaders of a network suspected of killing about 900 civilians and wounding nearly 2,000 others in a series of high-profile car bomb attacks.
Haytham Kazim Abdallah al-Shimari and Haydar Rashid Nasir al-Shammari al-Jafar were arrested separately on March 21 in Baghdad's Sunni district of Adhamiyah, the US military said.
"It is estimated that ... the car bombs from this cell have killed approximately 900 innocent Iraqi civilians and another 1,950 have been wounded," the military said.
Shimari, the alleged leader of the network, was arrested after he and his driver engaged in a shootout with US troops trying to flag his vehicle down.
The US military said Shimari is suspected of "being involved in the planning and execution of the majority of car bombs which have killed hundreds of Iraqi citizens in Sadr City."
Sadr City, the impoverished Shiite district in Baghdad, has been repeatedly hit by devastating car bombs carried out by Sunni extremists in the Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict that has engulfed the capital.
In November, 202 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in a coordinated car bombing in Sadr city, the biggest attack since the US-led invasion in 2003.
Jafar, the network's second in command, was arrested in Adhamiyah within 24 hours of Shimari's arrest following an intelligence tip, the military reported.
He was detained along with two other suspected members of the network, Ahmed Hassan Niami and Hamid Selman Allawi, while driving through Adhamiyah.
Insurgents have continued to carry out high-profile car bombs in and around Baghdad despite a massive security crackdown in the capital since Feb. 14.
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