Founder of Radical Iraqi Group Arrested
Mullah Krekar, a Kurdish founder of the Iraqi militant group Ansar al Islam, was arrested Friday on charges of plotting to kill his rivals in northern Iraq in 2000-01, his lawyer said.
The charges against Krekar weren’t terrorism-related, and a court hearing will take place today, when authorities will ask that he be held for at least four weeks, a prosecutor said.
The Bush administration says Ansar has links to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network. Krekar was released from a Norwegian jail in April after a court found insufficient grounds to hold him on terrorism charges.
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