The U.S. military not sure to have arrested the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq

The U.S. military said Sunday it was ...not certain... that an Iraqi arrested in late April in Baghdad was the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq and that it continued to attempt to determine the full role played by this man.

•     "We have nothing to contradict the information that the Iraqis have so far," said the spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, General David Perkins.
  
      "We are not certain of the integral role played by this man," said General Perkins.
  
      “Part of what we do is to try to determine who he was. This is not what he says, but most of what he was doing and planning,” said military spokesman, adding that the U.S. military worked very closely with Iraqi security forces.
  
      “We assemble all the pieces like a puzzle,” he explained.
  
      The Iraqi authorities had announced April 23 the capture of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, presented as the “evil chief” Al Qaeda in Iraq, responsible for dozens of suicide bombings in the country. In the past, they had twice announced his death.
  
      On 18 May, a video of the interrogation of a man introduced as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi had been shown to journalists.
  
      "I am called Abu Omar al-Baghdadi al-Husseini, with Abu Omar for Sunnis, al-Baghdadi for Iraq and central Iraq, and al-Husseini to include everyone (including Shi'a, ed), "said the voice of a man calm in this video a few minutes.
  
      The Pentagon has refused to formally confirm the arrest of Baghdadi, a man whose existence is not completely assured. The U.S. military usually presents the leader as a "shadow" at the head of a simple "virtual organization" with no existence on the Internet and created for purposes of propaganda to hide the predominance of foreign jihadis.
  
      After the announcement of the authorities, a man presenting himself as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi had denied being arrested by Iraqi authorities in a sound recording broadcast on 12 May by the U.S. central monitoring Islamist websites (SITE).
  
      Shortly before, a communiqué of the Islamic State of Iraq had denied the capture of its leader.
  
      Asked about the attacks that have caused over 60 lives last week in Baghdad, the spokesman believed they bore the signature of Al Qaeda "and that the targets chosen - the Shi'ite neighborhoods - should also be thinking that "it was attacks by the extremist network.
  
      "Al Qaeda seeks chaos and violence. When they do this kind of attacks, they seek to provoke attacks (i.e. armed Shiite groups) in return, recreate sectarian violence," said General Perkins.
  
      
  Ennaharonline/ AFP