Captured Terrorist Al Saeidi, Called "Al Qaeda #2 in Iraq," Was a Former Intelligence Officer in Saddam Regime

Iraq Cites Arrest of a Top Local Insurgent

Officials Call Detainee No. 2 in Al-Qaeda Group

By Amit R. Paley Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 4, 2006;
Page A01

BAGHDAD, Sept. 3 -- U.S. and Iraqi forces have captured a top al-Qaeda leader who ordered the bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra that triggered a wave of ferocious sectarian killings, Iraqi officials said Sunday.

The arrest of Hamed Jumaa Faris Juri al-Saeidi, described by Iraqi officials as the No. 2 leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was the latest in a series of blows to the Sunni Arab insurgent group, believed responsible for numerous suicide attacks on civilians and other deadly violence.....

Iraqi officials said Saeidi, an intelligence officer for ousted president Saddam Hussein, was captured within the past few weeks as he hid among women and children in an unspecified location just north of Baghdad. Saeidi, who is in his early forties, confessed that he had joined al-Qaeda in Iraq three years ago and is being held by U.S.-led coalition forces, the officials said. [entire article]