Iraq: Al Qaeda denies capture of its number two

Baghdad, 4 Sept. (AKI) - The al-Qaeda terror network on Monday denied claims by the Iraqi authorities that its second in command in Iraq, Hamdi Jamaa Faris Juri al-Saeidi, was captured by US and Iraqi forces over the weekend. Reports of al-Saedi's arrest had been invented by the Americans, al-Qaeda said in a statement. Al-Saeidi is alleged to have ordered the February bombing of a revered Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra, that triggered a wave of ferocious sectarian killings in Iraq, and to have assumed the command of al-Qaeda, after its late leader in Iraq, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed by a military airstrike in June.

"Our enemies have invented this Crusader propaganda that merely spins lies and disseminates them though the apostate government of Iraq, with the sole aim of concealing its own failures," the statement continued, apparently referring to clashes on Sunday between US forces as Islamic militants Ramadi, in the volatile Sunni insurgent stronghold of al-Anbar province west of the capital, Baghdad, in which two marines died.

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