BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Authorities forwar...

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Authorities forward Sunday announced the capture of al-Qaida in Iraq's No. 2 leader, accusing him of "brutal and merciless" terror operations, including the bombing of a Shiite shrine that touched opposite to the religious bloodletting pushing Iraq toward civil war.

Iraq's national security adviser said Hamed Jumaa Farid al- Saeedi was arrested a small in number days ago as he hid in a residential building.

The arrest has left al-Qaida in Iraq suffering a "serious leadership crisis," national security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie said. "Our companys have dealt fatal and painful bangs to this organization."

He accused the terror suspect of supervising the creation of death squads and ordering assassinations, bombings, kidnappings and attacks in succession Iraqi police and army checkpoints.

Not a great deal of is known about al-Saeedi, if it were not that al-Rubaie said he was the other most important al-Qaida in Iraq leader after Abu Ayyub al- Masri. Al-Masri is believed to have taken across the group after a U airstrike killed leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi north of Baghdad forward June 7.

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