Tribal leader’s alleged killer caught in Anbar

BAGHDAD – The U.S. military said Sunday its forces captured an Iraqi allegedly responsible for the killing of a tribal leader who had helped organize local forces against al-Qaida-linked insurgents in al-Anbar province.

The slaying of Sheik Abdul Sattar Rishawi last Thursday was part of a plot by militants to kill leaders in the Anbar Awakening Council, a coalition of tribes, military officials said.

Rishawi organized the council to assist U.S. forces in battling al-Qaida in Iraq, which sought to control the Sunni-dominated province west of the capital.

Key to the plot, the military said, was Fallah Khalifa Hiyas Fayyas Jumayli, an Iraqi who also is known as Abu Khamis. Jumayli was arrested south of Ramadi, the provincial capital.

“He was involved in the planning and execution of the plot to kill the sheik,” said Rear Adm. Mark I. Fox, a military spokesman. “He was also plotting to kill other members of the Anbar Awakening Council. He was also involved in organized activities including car bombs and suicide attacks in Anbar province.”

U.S. forces captured several men in the past two months who allegedly worked for Jumayli by supervising bombings and other attacks, said Maj. Jeff Pool, a military spokesman.

Five days before Rishawi’s killing, soldiers captured members of the militant leader’s group, and afterward they were able to track down Jumayli.

The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella radical group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the killing in a Web site declaration. Saturday, the militants warned that they would step up attacks during the monthlong observance of Ramadan, the Islamic period of fasting that began last week.

Sunday, nearly three dozen people were reported killed in gunfire and bombings across Iraq as military officials presented their case at a news conference that violence in the capital might be slowing.

Casualties in Baghdad fell from a monthly high of 2,221 last November to 980 killings in August, the U.S. military reported. The numbers could not be independently verified.