39 Al Qaeda militants captured in Iraq

BAGHDAD - Thirty-nine suspected Al Qaeda militants, including the outfit’s leaders in Iraq’s western province of Anbar, have been captured by security forces, a media report said Thursday.

“Iraqi security forces have captured 39 Al Qaeda members and their leaders who ran terrorist operations in Anbar province,” Interior Minister Jawad Bolani said in a televised news conference, according to Xinhua.

The militants were captured during operations carried out in the past five weeks in Anbar province, and some of them were arrested after they fled to Salahudin and Nineveh provinces in the north of Baghdad.

Maj. Gen. Dhiyaa Hussien, head of the counter-terrorism department in the interior ministry, said one captured militant named Hazim Abdul Razzaq al-Zawi was the minister of security for the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).