Iraq police arrest high-ranking member of U.S.-allied movement

[sabra]

Source: LA Times

But Mullah Nadim Jibouri says his detention is not related to his activities as an Awakening leader.

Reporting from Baghdad and Samarra, Iraq -- Iraqi police have arrested a senior member of the U.S.-allied Awakening movement in Salahuddin province, the American military said Sunday, continuing a crackdown that has left many of the Sunni Muslim paramilitary fighters seething with anger.

Mullah Nadim Jibouri, an Awakening leader in the town of Duluiya, 55 miles north of Baghdad, was detained Saturday along with two of his brothers, the military said.

Awakening leaders have been squeezed from all sides in recent months, with Iraqi authorities carrying out a series of arrests against them and Al Qaeda in Iraq continuing to target them with bombs. Late last month, Jibouri escaped a suicide attack at a mosque in the town where he was also an imam. The bomber, who detonated an explosives vest, killed five people and wounded 18, including one of Jibouri's now-detained brothers.

In an interview with The Times the day after the explosion, Jibouri blamed the attack on the insurgents he had abandoned when he agreed to join the Awakening, called the Sons of Iraq by the U.S. military.

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Iraqi authorities have said Jibouri is a former senior Al Qaeda in Iraq leader who is being held in connection with "terrorism" committed before he joined the Awakening. But movement leaders complain that, under the terms of the deal they reached when they agreed to team up with the Americans against the insurgency, they are supposed to be immune from prosecution for earlier actions.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq-arrest4-2009may04,0,338234.story