09 January 2005	Sunday	27 Ziqa'ad 1425

BAGHDAD, Jan 8: The United States military confirmed Saturday the arrest of a militant linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Al Qaeda-linked group in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

United States Brigadier General Erv Lessel said the top lieutenant for the Zarqawi-linked Abu Talha cell in Mosul, Aziz Sadun Ahmed Hamduni, had been detained on December 22, bringing to three the number of arrests of top leaders from the militant group in Mosul.

"These terrorists are doing all they can to stop upcoming elections," Lessel said.

Iraq's government had already announced on Thursday the arrest of Hamduni, also known as Abu Ahmed. It said he served as deputy to Zarqawi's commander in Mosul, known as Abu Talha, and led operations in the flashpoint city when his boss was absent.

The crackdown on Zarqawi-allied fighters came after a suicide bomber penetrated a United States military base in Mosul last month and killed 22 people, 18 of them Americans, in the deadliest single attack on United States forces in Iraq.

Abu Talha is thought to still be at large in Mosul, which has been a battlefront between US troops and insurgents since early November.

The Iraqi government had also announced the arrest of two other suspected Abu Talha leaders in late December.

Fadil Hussein Ahmed al-Kurdi, a 26-year-old Kurd, and two other suspects were caught in a raid by US-led forces, the government said on December 30, without specifying when the arrest took place.

It said Kurdi, also known as Abu Ubaida al-Kurdi or simply Ridha, coordinated the movement of fighters in and out of Iraq.

Ridha is the brother of Omar Baziyani, also a suspected Zarqawi partisan who was captured in May by United States-led forces in Baghdad, it added.

The government announced on December 28 the capture of Abu Marwan, a "key leader" of the Zarqawi network in Mosul on December 23.-AFP