BAGHDAD: Iraqi police have arrested five Egyptians in a raid against suspected terrorists in war-torn Baghdad, the office of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki announced Friday. National police commandos arrested an Iraqi along with the Egyptians, the statement said, without giving further details of the operation. The U.S. military maintains that the largest number of foreign fighters entering Iraq is from Egypt, followed by Saudi Arabia, Syria and Sudan. But Arab fighters from around the Middle East have been drawn to Iraq to take part in attacks by Sunni rebels against Maliki s government and his U.S. allies. They have been accused of fomenting sectarian fighting between Iraq s Sunnis and Shiites in a bid to make the country ungovernable, although experts debate the extent of their role in what is a largely Iraqi insurgency. Maliki s statement, issued in his capacity as head of the Iraqi security forces, said that a further 78 suspects had been rounded up in raids in Yusifiyah, Latifiyah, Mosul, Salaheddin province and the flashpoint western city of Ramadi. One officer was wounded in Madain, south of the capital, when insurgents fired on his patrol, the statement added. Meanwhile, U.S. forces also announced a success, the arrest of a terrorist facilitator suspected of financing insurgent attacks in the north of the country, including one attack that killed a U.S. soldier. AFP
Iraq arrests five Egyptian "terrorists"
