Coalition officials are touting the arrest of a lieutenant of Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
Mohammed Khalaf was taken into custody in Mosul.
Khalaf met as often as once a month with Zarqawi at locations south of Mosul and in western Iraq, and was, at the time of his capture, Zarqawi's most influential lieutenant still operating freely in Iraq, said Col. Robert Brown, the commander of the First Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division in Mosul, whose troops were involved in seizing Khalaf.
While the U.S. military has announced the capture of several of Zarqawi's key lieutenants, Khalaf, whose alias is Abu Talha, was their most-wanted man in northern Iraq. In an interview in December, the then-commander of U.S. forces here, Brig. Gen. Carter F. Ham, said of Khalaf: "Right now, if we could get one guy off the street in northern Iraq, he would be the guy."
Now, this is great news.
I just hope it doesn't turn out to be like so many other major "successes" in the GWOT. The Bush Administration has deceived us so many times, oversold so many non-events, that you almost have to assume this is a lie. Or, at best, an exaggeration.
Let's celebrate the arrest of a killer even as we wait for the other shoe to drop.
UncommonSense