The Iraqi prime minister said Wednesday that several armed groups have contacted his office about his national reconciliation plan and he wants direct talks on bringing them into the political process. However, in a televised statement, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said any amnesty "will exclude fighters who killed Iraqis or soldiers of the multinational forces."
Meanwhile, Iraqi forces captured a key al-Qaeda suspect wanted in the bombing of a Shiite shrine, a top security official said Wednesday. According to the AP, 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, National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie said.
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. The mosque attack was staged "in order to ignite sectarian strife among the Iraqi people," al-Rubaie said.
Al-Rubaie said Abu Qudama was involved in the shooting death of an Al-Arabiya TV correspondent and two of her colleagues hours after the shrine bombing. Abu Qudama entered Iraq in November 2003 and was captured in Udaim, a village about 70 miles north of Baghdad, al-Rubaie said.
Sporadic attacks continued across Iraq on Wednesday. A suicide car bomber blew up himself near a Sunni mosque in a market south of the northeastern city of Baqouba, killing one person and wounding 12, police said.
A roadside bomb targeting a U.S. convoy exploded in western Baghdad, killing an Iraqi civilian and wounding another, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said.
Gunmen also killed Riyadh Abdul-Majid Zuaini, the customs director for central Baghdad, and his driver in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Amariyah, Hussein said.
