World

Baghdad Under Curfew After Terror Nab

September 30, 2006 / 7:53 AM EDT / CBS/AP

The Iraqi capital was quiet Saturday as a curfew imposed in fear of imminent attacks kept residents inside, but violence persisted in other areas of the country.

Gunmen killed Malik Jebbar, an Iraqi man who had been working as an interpreter for the U.S. military in an area about 60 miles south of Baghdad, police Capt. Muthana Khalid said.

Another person was killed in nearby Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, when a bomb exploded in the city center, Khalid said. Five others were injured in the blast.

In Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, police opened fire on a suspected car bomber. The vehicle detonated, killing two and wounding 30 others, police Lt. Nejim Abdullah said.

After U.S. troops detained a bodyguard for the leader of Iraq's biggest Sunni Arab political group on suspicion he was preparing massive suicide bombings inside the fortified Green Zone, fearful officials on Saturday enforced a total ban on movement in Baghdad.

Speaking on Al-Arabiya TV on Saturday morning, Interior Ministry official Hussein Ali Kemal said the move was to "prevent the security situation from deteriorating." He added, however, that the information was that there was a threat that an attack "might occur against places of worship and shopping centers during Ramadan."

Baghdad police on Saturday found six corpses in the eastern section of the capital, more apparent victims of the sectarian death squads that roam the city.

Late Friday, a mortar round landed in the southeastern part of Baghdad, killing five people, including two children and their mother, while injuring another six, police Lt. Bilal Ali said.

In other developments:

Veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward writes in his new book of fierce efforts inside the White House to get rid of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a revelation that has caused a tremendous amount of concern at the White House. In Mike Wallace's interview with Woodward, to be broadcast on 60 Minutes this Sunday, Oct. 1, at 7 p.m. ET/PT, the reporter also claims that Henry Kissinger is among those advising Mr. Bush.

In a flurry of activity before their departure early Saturday morning, the Senate approved $448 billion in funding for the Pentagon, including $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The brother-in-law of the new judge presiding over Saddam Hussein's genocide trial was shot to death Friday morning in Baghdad in an attack that also seriously wounded his son, police said. Kadhim Abdul-Hussein and his son Karrar were shot in their car in the capital's western Ghazaliya neighborhood by unidentified assailants, police 1st Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.

Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri condemned President Bush in a video statement released Friday, calling him a failure and a liar. "Why don't you tell them how many million citizens of America and its allies you intend to kill in search of the imaginary victory and in breathless pursuit of the mirage towards which you are driving your people's sons in order increase your profits?" al-Zawahiri said in a portion of the video released by the Virginia-based IntelCenter.

Eight bodies with signs of torture were found in Baghdad on Friday, more apparent victims of the sectarian death squads that roam the capital, while three people died in scattered attacks. The corpses of seven men and one woman were all found in east Baghdad neighborhoods. They were blindfolded, and had their hands and legs bound, police said. U.S. commanders said since the start of Ramadan, which Sunnis started observing last Saturday and Shiites on Monday, there has been a spike in sectarian violence in Iraq, centered in the capital.

An audio recording attributed to the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, released on the Internet Thursday, calls on Muslims to make Ramadan "a month of holy war," and for militants to capture as many Western prisoners in Iraq as they can. The voice, believed to be that of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, also urged scientists with knowledge of nuclear and chemical weapons to join the Iraqi insurgents' cause.

Iraq's police play a critical role in determining when U.S. troops can start going home, so when recruits were graduating from the Baghdad Police College last month, American officials highlighted it as a big success. Today, the construction of that same police college — crucial to the U.S. strategy in Iraq — has been called "a disaster" by independent U.S. investigators, CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports.

Meanwhile, the bodyguard, Guard Khudhir Farhan was taken into custody Friday at the home of Adnan al-Dulaimi, the head of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament, al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press.

"The detained individual is suspected of involvement in the planning of a multi-vehicle suicide operation inside Baghdad's International Zone," the U.S. military said in a statement without identifying the suspect.

The zone in downtown Baghdad is home to the Iraqi government, parliament and the U.S. and other western embassies.

"Credible intelligence indicates the individual, a member of Dr. Dulaimi's personal security detachment, and seven members of the detained individual's cell were in the final stages of launching a series of (car bomb) attacks inside the International Zone, possibly involving suicide vests," the military said.

The man is suspected of having links to a car bomb network operating in the southern area of Baghdad, the military said.

"He is believed to be a member of the al Qaeda in Iraq group," the military said.

Immediately after the arrest Friday afternoon, al-Dulaimi denied the guard had any terrorist links, but when contacted Saturday he seemed to be retreating slightly from his previous comments.

"That individual joined my residence as a guard no more than a month ago, therefore I haven't got complete data about his background," al-Dulaimi said. "Anyhow, they are only suspicions about his involvement, which have not been proved."

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