The US military said Friday it had detained a senior leader of al-Qaida in Iraq and three other suspected insurgents in raids northeast of Baghdad, near where al-Qaida chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a US air raid earlier this month.
The chief suspect reportedly was a senior al-Qaida cell leader in central Iraq, north of the capital, and was known to be involved in helping foreign fighters.
Coalition forces raided multiple buildings on Monday and detained the "known terrorist" and the three others with incident, according to the military statement.
Several women and children were at the raid sites, but they were not injured and were allowed to return to their homes once troops secured the area, it said.
