At least 11 people were killed and 65 wounded Friday when a suicide car bomber blew himself up in al-Tayaran square in central Baghdad's al-Bab al-Sharki district, media reports said, according to DPA. Security forces sealed off the area as ambulances rushed the victims to hospital. Nearby cars were destroyed and buildiings damaged, the independent Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported, citing police sources. Iraqi security forces in the southern Iraqi city of Mahmoudiya meanwhile arrested a senior member of a group affiliated to the al- Qaeda terrorist network, an Iraqi security official said. Ahmed Turki Abbas, the "defence minister" of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq group, was arrested after clashes between the security forces and some group members, according to Qassem Atta, spokesman for Baghdad's Fardh al-Qanoun (Law Enforcement) security plan. Abbas was slightly injured in the clashes, Atta told VOI. Iraqi forces backed by US troops detained overnight four suspected al-Qaeda fighters, including a Saudi national, in Samarra, 100 kilometres north of Baghdad, a police source told VOI. In other news, US-led coalition forces killed five terrorist suspects and detained 14 suspects Friday during operations targeting al-Qaeda in central and northern Iraq, the US military reported.
