US forces capture Iraqi resistance leader

US forces nab Iraq resistance leader

From correspondents in Baghdad

February 18, healing 2004



A LEADING figure in the resistance around the Iraqi flashpoint town of Fallujah was captured by US forces yesterday during a gun battle in which four soldiers were also wounded, there the US military said today.



read more…In a pre-dawn operation near the rebel town, sale 50 kilometres west of Baghdad, US troops killed one person and caught nine others, including Sadun Mishan, believed to be an anti-coalition cell leader in the region, a military statement said.



A second alleged ringleader, Yasin Hamdi Asef, targeted in the attack by the US military, escaped.



Fallujah, a town which lies in the so-called Sunni Triangle, has become the hotbed of insurgent activity in Iraq.



Gunmen staged a spectacular daylight raid with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades against the main police station and an Iraqi Civil Defence Corps post in the town on Saturday, leaving 23 policemen dead and freeing some 70 criminals.



The Associated Press