US forces have captured a senior aide to Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr sought over the killing of five US soldiers in the Iraqi city of Kerbala in January, the US military said today.
"Over the past several days, coalition forces in Basra and Hilla captured Qais Khazaali, his brother Laith Khazaali, and several other members of the Khazaali network, an organisation directly connected to the kidnapping and murder in January of five American soldiers in Kerbala," the military said in a statement.
Senior Iraqi official Saad Yousif al-Muttalibi
Elsewhere, an Iraqi official said today the government was holding talks with some major insurgent groups that might see some join a fight to drive al-Qaeda out of Iraq.
Saad Yousif al-Muttalibi, international affairs director at the National Dialogue and Reconciliation Ministry, said the talks were designed to persuade the groups to halt guerrilla warfare against the government and help defeat al-Qaeda.
"We've already established links and contacts with major insurgent groups," Mr Muttalibi told the BBC. "One of the aims is to join with them into the fight against al-Qaeda. We are almost getting there and to join forces to attack al-Qaeda to get them out of Iraq."
Insurgents draw support from Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, once dominant under Saddam Hussein.
The western Anbar province has been a hotbed for the insurgency, but since last September there has been a mounting power struggle in the area between al-Qaeda, which has non-Iraqi Arabs as its leaders, and fellow Sunnis who oppose the group.
Increasing sectarian violence between Sunnis and Iraq's majority Shia Muslim community has become an additional security concern in the country.
Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki - who heads a coalition government of Shias, Sunnis and Kurds - has ordered a major crackdown against insurgents and sectarian violence in Baghdad.
President Bush is sending about 26,000 more US troops to Iraq, mainly to back the crackdown in Baghdad.