 Omar Hadeed, senior aide of Iraq's most wanted man Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was wounded in the US-spearheaded assault on Fallujah but was able to return to action, a rebel leader told an AFP correspondent. "If you heard that Omar Hadeed was killed, that is false.
| "This is not his ribcage!" |
"He was wounded in the arm during the fighting in Jolan (neighbourhood) and then he returned to his place in the battle," said Abu Mohammed, a member of the Mujahedeen Advisory Council which ran Fallujah before last week's offensive. "(Hadeed) was always in Fallujah," Mohammed said, adding that his current location was unknown.
| "We think he might be in the Teheran neighborhood of Fallujah, but we're not sure..." |
Mohammed spoke with the AFP correspondent on November 13. The correspondent had spent the duration of the fighting with the insurgents and was able to escape the city Thursday, arriving in Baghdad the following day. Another AFP correspondent, Faris Dlimi, was able to leave Fallujah on November 13, five days after US and Iraqi government forces launched their blistering offensive to retake the city from the Sunni Arab insurgents. The London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat, quoting "informed sources" in Iraq, said Hadeed was a former member of ousted president Saddam Hussein's special guard before joining Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network and training in Afghanistan. He returned to Iraq after US-led forces ousted Afghanistan's hardline Taliban regime in late 2001, the newspaper said, and was one of the rebels' chief leaders in Fallujah. "He carried out the battle of Fallujah," the newspaper said, adding that members of Hadeed's family had been killed in a US raid on their house, conducted two hours after Hadeed had visited. US and Iraqi officials say Zarqawi had also been in Fallujah but has since fled. |