US troops have detained the news editor of a television station owned by Iraq's most powerful political party and his son, who they accused of attacks on US and Iraqi forces, the US military says. Hafodh al-Beshara, news editor and manager of political programming of the al-Furat television station, was arrested during a raid on the channel's offices in Baghdad's central Karrada district late on Saturday night, station officials said.Al-Furat is owned by the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the biggest Shi'ite party in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government. Its leader is Abdul Azis al-Hakim, one of Iraq's most influential politicians, who has been courted by Washington and met President George W Bush at the White House in November.
The US military said in an email response to questions from Reuters that Beshara had been detained in the operation to arrest his son, who was identified in an earlier statement as a suspected militia intelligence operative. "His (Beshara) arrest had nothing to do with his place of employment or his relationship to his son," US military spokesman Major Brad Leighton said.