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AL QAEDA LIEUTENANT KILLED IN IRAQThere's very little US coverage of the story thus far - perhaps stopping a suicide bomber isn't newsworthy in the States. But Al Jazeera is all over it:BAGHDAD, Iraq ? Terrorist Abu Zubair, also known as Mohammed Salah Sultan, was killed August 12 by Iraqi Security Forces in an ambush in the northern city of Mosul.
Zubair was a known member of Al Qaeda in Iraq and a lieutenant in Abu Musab Zarqawi?s terrorist operations in Mosul who was being sought by Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces for his involvement in a July suicide bombing attack of a police station in Mosul resulting in the death of five Iraqi police officers. He was also suspected of resourcing and facilitating suicide bomber attacks against Coalition, Iraqi Security Forces and Iraqi citizens throughout the country.
When Zubair was killed he was wearing a suicide device consisting of an explosive pack across his stomach armed with pellets.
?Abu Zubair?s death, as well as recent captures of terrorists in northern Iraq, is making a difference in Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces efforts to disrupt terrorists operating in this part of the country,? said Col. Billy J. Buckner, spokesman for the Multi-National Corps. ?Terrorists are doing all they can to stop the rise of a free Iraq, but their bombs and attacks have not prevented Iraqi sovereignty and they will not prevent Iraqi democracy,? Buckner said.
During the week of August 6 through 12, Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces captured three bomb makers and six foreign fighters as well as found and cleared 101 improvised explosive devices.
On Jul 27, Security Forces conducted a raid on a safe house in Mosul arresting six terrorists and finding terrorist propaganda to include a letter written to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In the letter the author, Abu Zayd, a terrorist operating out of Mosul, complained of the poor leadership in Mosul and mistreatment of foreign fighters.
A top aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of the al-Qaida operation in Iraq and accused of masterminding high-profile bombings in the country, has been killed by Iraqi security forces, US defence officials said.But the battlefield success hardly impressed two leading US senators, who on Sunday questioned the Pentagon's handling of the situation in Iraq and said they no longer had confidence in Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
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"Abu Zubair's death, as well as recent captures of terrorists in northern Iraq, is making a difference in coalition and Iraqi security forces' efforts to disrupt terrorists operating in this part of the country," Colonel Bill Buckner, a spokesman for the multinational force, told reporters.He expressed confidence that bombings and other attacks "will not prevent Iraqi democracy".
However, Joseph Biden, the top Democrat on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that judging by the way things were unfolding in Iraq, democracy there "will not happen in my lifetime".
He argued the most the Bush administration could hope for under the circumstances was a government that would be able to secure public safety and not be a threat to its neighbours.
