A senior member of the al-Qaeda in Iraq group was arrested in the northern Salah-al-Din province, a security official said Sunday, a day after the arrest of seven commanders of the Islamic State of Iraq extremist group in the neighbouring province of Diyala. Police arrested overnight Ali Hussein al-Sanjari, a senior preacher and issuer of religious rulings in the extremist al-Qaeda in Iraq group in Salah al-Din, said Ahmed al-Fahal from the anti-terror unit of the local police. Al-Sanjari was arrested as he was coming out of the al-Huda mosque at the centre of Tikrit after he gave a sermon to a gathering of young men about rulings on declaring Muslims as Kafir, meaning Muslims who break religious rules and are doomed to hell. Al-Sanjari, who is from the town of Siniya in Bayji, issued a religious ruling sanctioning the killing of civilians and attacks on Iraqi troops in Salah-al-Din. The arrest comes after Iraq troops backed by US forces in Diyala province, to the east of Salah-al-Din, captured 29 members of the Islamic State of Iraq in Buhruz, seven of whom are commanders, the province police chief, Ghanim al-Qurayshi, told the pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper. The Islamic State of Iraq is a Sunni extremist group with close links to the al-Qaeda terror network.