WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi security forces may have come close to capturing Iraqi al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the past two weeks and are weakening his support network, Iraq's interior minister said on Thursday.
"We are following him," Interior Minister Falah al-Naquib told Pentagon reporters in a videoconference from Baghdad. "I think we missed him twice or three times, but hopefully next time we will be able to capture him."
"I think we arrived a bit late. Maybe we missed him by one hour. ... You know, he is not staying in one place. He is moving from one area to another. So, we will get him — very soon, hopefully," Naquib added.
"I the last six weeks, our Iraqi and Ministry of Interior Security Forces - the special forces - have been able to do a great job. We have arrested more than 350 terrorists in just the last three weeks before the elections," he said.
"We have weakened them very much and we are continuing to weaken them, and hopefully in a very short time nobody will hear about Zarqawi and his group."
Zarqawi is a Jordanian Sunni Muslim radical who leads the group known as al Qaeda in Iraq. The group has claimed responsibility for numerous car bombings and other deadly attacks on U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq and on Iraqi police and other security forces.
lihnk Say what you want, but for just having 1 leg, this guy is extremly fast......
