Iraqi police arrest 21 senior members of Al-Qaeda

Iraq's police forces have arrested 21 members of the terrorist al-Qaeda group in the two provinces of Diyala and Sulaymaniyah and seized a large cache of weapons and ammunitions, a spokesman announced on Saturday."Last night 18 senior members of the al-Qaeda organization were arrested by the security forces in a joint operations of the Iraqi police and Army in Meqdadiyah and Katoun districts in Diyala province and a large cache of weapons and ammunitions were also discovered and seized," Qaleb Atiya, the police spokesman in Diyala province, told FNA. He also reiterated that Iraq's Kurdish security forces also "detained 3 senior members of the al-Qaeda in Sulaymaniyah after receiving information about their names and hideouts from us" . Atiya underlined that the arrested al-Qaeda members were responsible for a large number of blasts and hijackings in the country. The news came after authorities announced that Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric and one of the most influential al-Qaeda operatives wanted by the US, was killed Friday in an airstrike in Northern Yemen. The 40-year-old Awlaki, an American citizen, had emerged as a leading charismatic recruiter for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.