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US troops arrest Iran-linked key financier of Iraqi extremists |
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Monday, 13 August 2007 |
 BAGHDAD (AFP) - US troops arrested a alleged Iran-linked financier of
Iraqi extremists during a raid in western Baghdad on Monday, the
military said.
The arrest of the "key financier" comes a day after US troops killed up
to five militants and arrested 13 alleged Iran-linked arms smugglers in
a sweep on Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City.
"Coalition forces captured a key financier of special groups terrorists during a pre-dawn raid Monday in western Baghdad," the military said in a statement, without revealing his identity.
The suspect is believed to be a "special groups" leader for the Bayaa neighbourhood in the western part of the Iraqi capital, it said.
The US military claims that such "special groups" of Iraqi extremists are trained, armed and funded by Iran's elite Quds Force, a unit of the Islamic republic's Revolutionary Guard.
The military accuses these groups of directing attacks against US-led troops and inciting sectarian violence in Iraq.
On Sunday, US troops killed up to five militants and detained another 13 during a ground and air raid on Sadr City.
Those arrested are suspected of smuggling weapons, including explosively formed projectiles (EFPs), fist-shaped bombs that cut through a heavily armoured vehicle, and people from Iran into Iraq, the mlitary said.
More than 200 US soldiers have been killed since May 2004 by EFPs, allegedly manufactured in Iran and supplied to Iraqi extremists, the military says.
During the raid Sunday, the military said a US air strike killed three to five militants in a truck.
"As coalition forces were departing the area, they encountered and destroyed a light utility truck that posed a threat to the force," it said.
"A coalition air strike also engaged the same light utility truck, destroying the truck and killing an estimated three to five people in the truck believed to be terrorists."
The US military regularly accuses Iran's Quds Force of arming, funding and training Iraqi extremists to carry out attacks on its troops in war-ravaged Iraq. Tehran denies the charge.
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