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Iraqi Doctor Admits to Killings
Yacoubi said the mortars appeared to have been fired at close range from another house in the neighborhood, an area in northeast Najaf that is controlled by Sadr's forces, the Madhi Army. Angry followers of the young Shiite cleric surrounded Sadr's compound after it was hit by two 82mm mortar rounds.
Shortly after the attack, the cleric issued a statement calling for calm among his followers, who have been accused of deadly retaliatory attacks on Sunni Arabs following other provocations, which Sadr often blames on the West.
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"I call upon my brothers not to be dragged after the West's plots," Sadr's statement said. "Every body should stay calm."
In Kirkuk, the arrest of the doctor, first reported by the Independent newspaper in London, followed arrests beginning two months ago of various members of a criminal gang with links to Ansar al-Sunna that had kidnapped more than 150 people and executed 18 of them, the PUK intelligence official said. Other arrests of insurgents followed.
During interrogations, the insurgents were asked who gave them medical treatment, and they identified Taie, the official said. He said the organization selected Taie because he was young and wanted money.
In the statement aired on Kurdish television, the doctor said that he was paid up to $100 for each operation in which he participated. He asserted responsibility for killing the assistant police chief in Kirkuk, Gen. Ajman Abdullah, with a fatal injection, and the general's brother, a soldier who was admitted to the hospital after being injured by a roadside bomb.
The doctor said he helped an insurgent escape from the hospital. The intelligence officials said that Taie also advised insurgents how to forge documents to claim one of their members was shot by U.S. forces, so that he could be treated at a hospital in Mosul, about 100 miles away.
Special correspondents Naseer Nouri in Baghdad, Saad Sarhan in Najaf and Hasan Shammari in Baqubah, and other reporters for The Washington Post contributed to this report.
