500 arrested in Iraq patrols
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U.S. soldiers on a "presence patrol" walk through the village of Alganah in northwestern Iraq.
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CAMP DOHA, Kuwait (CNN) -- Coalition forces conducting recent police patrols in Iraq have arrested nearly 500 people, including a brother-in-law of Saddam Hussein, U.S. Central Command said Monday.
Luay Khayrallah, brother of the wife of the deposed Iraqi leader, was also a companion of Saddam's eldest son, Uday, as well as a "representative of the former regime's intelligence/security apparatus," according to a Central Command statement.
Khayrallah, No. 152 on the coalition's "most wanted" list, was captured Friday, the statement said. Officials did not say where he was captured.
In Baghdad, troops arrested 311 people on Sunday and Monday for crimes including looting, curfew violations, weapons violations, theft and carjacking, the statement said.
The patrols are part of the effort to control rampant crime that has emerged as one of the threats to stability in post-war Iraq.
Saturday, soldiers from the Third Infantry Division confiscated a 5-ton truckload of stolen merchandise and arrested four suspects in a raid on a suspected fencing operation in Baghdad, the statement said.
The same raid shut down a black-market dealer in small arms, the statement said.
Another priority of coalition forces is seizing some of the weapons now in the hands of criminals and potential paramilitary groups.
Central Command said the Third Infantry Division has removed more than 1,000 truckloads of ammunition, explosives and weapons from Baghdad.
In other actions Sunday described by Central Command:
• Soldiers from the Fourth Infantry Division detained 13 people near Tikrit on suspicion of harboring paramilitary forces and members of Saddam's regime.
• U.S. troops arrested four people in a raid on the home of a suspected Baath Party official near Fallujah.
• U.S. Army military police arrested nine Iraqis for allegedly breaking into a gas pipeline near Nasiriyah.
