US forces captured a leading al-Qaeda militant on Sunday whom they hold responsible for a wave of deadly car bombings in the capital, the military said in a statement. It did not name the suspect but said he was a close aide of al-Qaeda's Baghdad commander. It said the captured militant had ties to several senior al-Qaeda figures and was suspected of involvement in a series of deadly vehicle bombings in the capital. And, that he was detained along with two other known al-Qaeda militants.
A US military spokesperson told AFP the captured militant acted as a point man for the al-Qaeda commander. He was a "gatekeeper, somebody through whom you needed to go to meet the leader," he said.
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