LOC23:16
20:16 GMT
BAGHDAD, Aug 21 (KUNA) -- Iraqi authorities have detained "a terrorist
cell" suspected of being behind the fiery blasts that rocked the capital on
Wednesday killing 100 people and wounding 600 others.
The state-run Iraqi Television on Friday quoted Major General Qassem Atta,
the spokesman of the law enforcement plan, as saying that the nabbed
terrorists were suspected of being masterminds of the recent explosions that
had also left heavy damage in the city.
Maj. Gen. Atta added that a truck packed with some five tons of explosives
was discovered and seized, last Friday, in Abu Ghuraib, 25 kilometers west of
the capital. Another booby-trapped car was also discovered and safely defused
in the same region.
The authorities arrested two chiefs of Al-Qaeda on Wednesday. They said the
pair planned to set off a truck full of explosives in Al-Mansour district in
the western sector of the capital.
The Iraqi authorities, with backing of the allies, have been struggling to
restore normal conditions in the country, in the face of a violent campaign,
waged by a cocktail of insurgency groups.
US forces, the bulk of the allied force backing the Iraqi government, have
recently pulled out of major Iraqi cities as part of a plan to carry out
staged pullout from the country. (end)
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