US forces have captured a suspected top leader of Ansar al-Islam in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in a significant blow to a militant Islamic group believed to be plotting attacks in Iraq, a US defense official said. “What we had was a very senior AI (Ansar al-Islam) guy got picked up Thursday night into Friday,” said the official. The official was identified as Aso Hawleri, also known as Asad Muhammad Hasan, the official said. Hawleri was the leader of an Ansar al Islam faction called the Second Soran Unit, which at one point consisted of some 350 armed fighters, according to Michael Rubin, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in a December 2001 report. Full Story
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