13 AQI suspects nabbed near Samarra

SALAH AL-DIN / IraqiNews.com: A total of 13 persons believed to belong to al-Qaeda in Iraq network were detained in the west of Samarra city, according to a local police source. “Today, a joint U.S.-Iraqi force detained 13 al-Qaeda suspects during a raid on a house in Albo Hazim village in al-Jazeera area (25 km west of Samarra),” the source told IraqiNews.com. “Three of those arrested have been handed over to the U.S. forces,” the source noted. Salah al-Din has an area of 24,751 square kilometers (9,556.4 sq mi). The estimated population for 2003 was 2,146,500 people. Located in Central Iraq, north of Baghdad, it is a mainly Sunni province with only two Shiite districts, namely Balad and al-Dujail. Its capital city is Tikrit, the hometown of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It also includes other important districts like Baiji, north of Tikrit, 175 km north of Baghdad. The province also contains the significantly larger city of Samarra. Before 1976 the province was part of the governorate of Baghdad. SS (P) 1