Iraqi forces arrest 16 terror suspects

BAGHDAD - Iraqi security forces have arrested 16 suspected al-Qaeda members accused of being behind more than 100 killings in…

BAGHDAD - Iraqi security forces have arrested 16 suspected al-Qaeda members accused of being behind more than 100 killings in the capital, a senior security official said yesterday.

Gen Ahmed Abu Ragheef, the interior ministry’s head of internal affairs, accused the men of carrying out the high-profile assassination in May of Ali al-Lami, a senior Iraqi politician who helped purge members of Saddam Hussein’s banned Baath Party from politics after the 2003 US-led invasion.

Militants have stepped up attacks, targeting police and army officers, to try to destabilise the government as US troops prepare to leave by December, more than eight years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

“We managed to arrest the terrorist group that was responsible for the recent assassinations in Baghdad,” Gen Ragheef told reporters at a news conference. –(Reuters)