Guard of top Sunni politician said involved in plot that caused Baghdad curfew

Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of the Iraqi Accord Front -- the largest Sunni Block, with 44 of 275 seats in the Iraqi National Assembly -- was instrumental in encouraging Sunni's to vote in the December, 2005 election. He escaped assassination this March.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. troops detained a bodyguard for the leader of Iraq's biggest Sunni Arab political group on suspicion the guard was preparing suicide bombings, and fearful officials on Saturday enforced a total ban on movement in this city of about seven million people.

The U.S. command said the man was believed to be a member of al-Qaida in Iraq and was preparing a series of suicide attacks inside the heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the Iraqi government, parliament and the U.S. and other western embassies.

Khudhir Farhan was taken into custody Friday at the home of Adnan al-Dulaimi, the head of the largest Sunni Arab bloc in parliament, al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press.

"Credible intelligence indicates the individual, a member of Dr. Dulaimi's personal security detachment, and seven members of the detained individual's cell were in the final stages of launching a series of (car bomb) attacks inside the International Zone, possibly involving suicide vests," the U.S. military said in a statement without identifying the man by name.

He is suspected of having links to a car bomb network operating in the southern area of Baghdad, the military said.

Read the rest at the Washington Post.

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