国际英语新闻：Iraq arrests mastermind of Wednesday's truck bombings

BAGHDAD, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi military spokesman Sunday announced the arrest of the mastermind of Wednesday's deadly truck bombings in central Baghdad, the state-run television of Iraqia reported.

Ali Kadhim Ibrahim, a high-ranking member of Saddam Hussien's Ba'ath party, confessed to planning and organizing Wednesday's attacks which claimed casualties of nearly 1,300 people, said spokesman of the Baghdad Operation Command Qassim Atta at a press conference aired by Iraqia.

    In a videotape showed by Qassim Atta, Ibrahim, who looked in good health, said he fled to neighboring Syria after the U.S.-led invasion and came back to Iraq in February 2007.

    A month ago, another Ba'ath party member Sattam Farhan phoned him from Syria and ordered him to carry out an attack to destabilize the security in Baghdad, Ibrahim said.

    "The truck bomb was prepared by other party members in Maqdadiyah, some 100 km northeast of Baghdad," Ibrahim said, adding that he paid 10,000 U.S. dollars to people who helped bring the booby-trapped truck to Baghdad.

    The truck bomb passed several checkpoints on its route and was finally close to the Finance Ministry near the highway where the blast occurred, he said, without mentioning the other truck bomb outside the Foreign Ministry.

    According to Qassim Atta, confessions of others in the captured terrorist cell will be aired on the television later.

Iraq's chief military spokesman Brigadier General Qassim Atta shows a video of man identified as former police chief named Wissam Ali Khadhim Ibrahim confessing to organising one of the truck bomb blasts last week during a media conference in Baghdad August 23, 2009

Iraqia channel also said security members of several checkpoints on the route of the truck bombs have been arrested for investigations.

    On Wednesday, two truck bombs blew up near Iraq's Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Foreign Affairs in central Baghdad, marking the most fatal day in nearly 18 months.

    Qassim Atta said the attacks killed 87 people and wounded more than 1,200 others. While, Interior Ministry sources told Xinhua earlier that the blasts killed 95 people and wounded 563 others.

    Late on Friday, Qassim Atta said a terror group responsible for Wednesday's deadly attacks against Iraqi ministries in Baghdad was arrested. The terror group was linked to the former Ba'ath party.