Via the World Tribune:
The U.S. military in Iraq has captured the deputy military chief of the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah, coalition officials said. Iraqi sources said the U.S. Army has arrested the No. 2 figure in Hizbullah’s military wing. The sources said the unidentified Hizbullah commander was responsible for training the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army in the Baghdad area. “The arrest is a major achievement and could provide an intelligence bonanza,” an Iraqi source said. The U.S.-led coalition has reported the capture of a senior Iranian operative south of Baghdad. In a coalition statement, the operative was described as a “primary weapons smuggler and financier for Iranian-backed enemy fighters.” … Iraqi and U.S. officials agreed that the Lebanese-based Hizbullah has been a leading tool in the Iranian training and direction of Shi’ite militias, particularly the Mahdi Army and Special Groups. The officials said Hizbullah officers, favored by Teheran over Iranian nationals, conceal their identity even from the Shi’ite groups they train.
UPDATE: Bill Roggio doubts the accuracy of this report, and suspects that the alleged Hezbollah commander is in fact one of the Iranian-backed Special Groups leaders recently captured. He writes to me in an email:
I am nearly certain the World Tribune report of a “senior Hezbollah commander” captured in Iraq is inaccurate. The report is the only one of its kind out there, there is no confirmation anywhere in the mainstream press, the source is an anonymous Iraqi official, the US military has not confirmed, and none of my contacts have confirmed this as well (instead they said not likely). I begged off this report when I published my update on Iraq on Friday at The Long War Journal. I suspect someone confused one of the Mahdi Army/Special Groups leaders captured in Al Kut with a Hezbollah leader.
