United States troops have arrested a top lieutenant to Shiite rebel cleric Sheik Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad, according to a member of the radical fundamentalist’s movement. Sayed Amer al-Husseini, the head of Sadr’s office in his stronghold of Sadr City, was detained when 20 US military vehicles drove up to Sadr’s office and sealed off the area, said Sayed Kamal who works in the movement’s Baghdad branch. Helicopters buzzed overhead as coalition soldiers surrounded the offices and traded fire with Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia. The troops raided his office in Baghdad and arrested Husseini and four others after a gun battle in which a Sadr supporter was killed and one wounded. Sadr is bunkered down in the shrine city of Najaf as his supporters battle with the coalition in Naja, Kufa, Diwaniyah and Karbala among other places.
The cat puts some teeth in the mouse. |