Reports are surfacing that an adviser to Parliament Speaker Osama Nujaifi has been arrested on terrorism charges. Ali Ahmed Abbas al-Dlemi is Nujaifi’s adviser on legislative affairs. Nujaifi is the second most powerful Sunni, after fugitive Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, in Iraq. Several guards may have also been arrested.
If the reports turn out to be accurate, the arrests will support complaints that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office is attempting to marginalize Sunnis in post-U.S. Iraq. Meanwhile, Qatar has rejected Iraqi demands that Hashemi be returned to Baghdad. They maintain that, so long as Hashemi has not been tried nor stripped of his title, they will not hand him over.
At least eight Iraqis were killed and three more were wounded in various attacks.
In Tikrit, a sticky bomb killed a television journalist as he was driving home from work. Kamiran Salaheddin is, so far, the second journalist killed in Iraq this year. Despite a drop in casualties since the height of sectarian violence, Iraq remains one of the deadliest countries for journalists.
Gunmen killed two farmers in Haditha.
Two al-Qaeda suspects were killed after a clash in Islah Zera’ee.
A Yazidi man was shot dead while at his grocery store in Khitara. Security forces were able to safely remove two bombs the militants left behind.
In Mosul, gunmen killed a real estate dealer at his office.
In Baghdad, a military officer was shot dead.
An I.E.D. in Moalimeen wounded two policemen.
A civilian was wounded in Najaf when a hand grenade was thrown from a passing car.
