Extremist behind Samarra shrine attack killed

.An Iraqi security chief said Saturday that US and Iraqi forces have killed the militant behind the attack on a revered Shia mosque that was widely seen as the trigger for Iraq's sectarian war.
"On August 2, joint US-Iraqi forces raided a residential area around Samarra. They killed Haitham al-Baderi, also known as Haitham al-Saba," said interior ministry operations director Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf.
"He was killed with a group of terrorists," said Khalaf, adding that Baderi had been wanted in connection with the February 2006 attack on the Al-Askari mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Samarra.