Suspect Captured

US authorities report that they have captured a suspect in the murder of Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reisha in Iraq.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US military in Iraq said it has captured an insurgent believed linked to the killing of a Sunni tribal leader, as violence killed at least 20 people on Sunday after Al-Qaeda warned of a bloody Ramadan.

The suspected Al-Qaeda fighter was detained near Balad north of Baghdad on Saturday, two days after Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha was killed in a car bomb near his home in western Anbar province, a military statement said.

Abu Reesha, a Sunni sheikh, had spearheaded the fight against Al-Qaeda in Anbar and was a key ally of the United States in its battle against the Iraqi affiliate of Osama bin Laden's jihadist network.

The US military named the detained Iraqi man as Fallah Khalifa Hiyas Fayyas al-Jumayli and said he had also been involved in a plot to kill tribal leaders in Anbar.

"He is also reportedly responsible for car bomb and suicide vest attacks in Anbar province, and is closely allied with senior Al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders in the region," the statement said.

The Islamic State of Iraq, which is affiliated to Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for Abu Reesha's killing in an Internet statement on Friday, and warned it would target all Sunni leaders who support US troops in Iraq.

It also vowed a new offensive during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

These are acts of desperation on al Qaeda's part. In today's Opinion Journal, Fouad Ajami, who teaches at Johns Hopkins University, has a short profile of a number of Iraqi leaders, including the late Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reisha.

BAGHDAD–"We liberated the Anbar, we defeated al Qaeda by denying it religious cover," Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reisha said with a touch of pride and impatience. This was the dashing tribal leader who emerged as the face of the new Sunni accommodation with American power, and who was assassinated by al Qaeda last week. I had not been ready for his youth (born in 1971), nor for his flamboyance. Sir David Lean, the legendary director of "Lawrence of Arabia," would have savored encountering this man. There was style, and an awareness of it, in Abu Reisha: his brown abaya bordered with gold thread, a neat white dishdasha, and a matching headdress. "Our American friends had not understood us when they came, they were proud, stubborn people and so were we. They worked with the opportunists, now they have turned to the tribes, and this is as it should be. The tribes hate religious parties and religious fakers."

We were in Baghdad, and the sheikh gave me his narrative. There was both candor and evasion in the story he told. Al Qaeda and its Arab jihadists had found sanctuary and support in the Anbar; they had recruited the "criminal elements" and the "lowly," they had brought zeal and bigotry unknown to the Iraqis. Initially welcomed, they began to impose their own tyranny. They declared haram (impermissible) the normal range of social life. They banned cigarettes, they married the daughters of decent families without the permission of their elders. They violated the great code of decent society by "shedding the blood of travelers on routine voyages." The prayer leaders of mosques were bullied, then murdered.

Ajami's article looks at several other important political leaders in Iraq. You might be more than a bit surprised by what you read.