Iraqis capture al Qaeda "Golden Dome" bomber

AP/Fox News:

Iraqi forces captured a key Al Qaeda suspect wanted in the bombing of a Shiite shrine, but the mastermind of the attack that brought the country to the brink of civil war was still at large, a top security official said Wednesday.

Yousri Fakher Mohammed Ali, a Tunisian also known as Abu Qudama, was captured after being seriously wounded in a clash with security forces north of Baghdad a few days ago in which 15 other foreign fighters were killed, National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie said.

He also identified the fugitive ringleader in the operation as an Iraqi named Haitham Sabah Shaker Mohammed al-Badri, the head of a gang that included two other Iraqis, four Saudis and Abu Qudama. He said the gang planted bombs in the 1,200-year-old Askariya mosque that exploded on Feb. 22 and obliterated its glistening golden dome, an addition completed in 1905.

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Al Qaeda operations in Iraq continue to unravel at a rapid pace. This capture is already paying huge dividends and should go a long way toward stopping the sectarian violence that al Qaeda wanted. If the media were really focused on winning this war, this would be a much bigger story. It deserves more attention.

The Belmont Club has more including a link to a post by Iraq the Model. Apparently this al Qaeda opperative also has ties to Saddam's former regimes. Wretchard also makes this interesting comment about how intelligence made the operation possible.

If Rubaie has got the right perps then this is a tremendous intelligence victory for the Coalition. Whatever cell was in charge of investigating the Golden Mosque incident never let this trail go until it finally led to this Baghdadi safehouse. Again it shows that the primary weapon of the Coalition isn't what is visible to the eye but rather that which goes unremarked. Intelligence operations followed by targeted raids. For that reason the war against intel unremittingly waged by institutions like the New York Times has its price. It has a cost. While it's true that there are always going to be valid concerns about the intrusive impact of intel operations, there is no way that crimes like the Golden Mosque attack can be solved without them. The question is always going to be how much we are willing to hamper the capability to catch heartless murderers in order to preserve the normalcy of our lives. Once the tradeoff is understood then the choices can be intelligently made.

He may be assuming too much intelligence on the part of liberals who oppose the war. Their opposition is more emotion based than logic base giving me little confidence that they can be persuaded by reason. Defeating them electorially is the only way to overcome their editorial direction.