The politics of these operations must get pretty hairy:
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. troops have detained the news editor of a television station owned by Iraq’s most powerful political party and his son, who they accused of attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces, the U.S. military said on Monday.
Hafodh al-Beshara, news editor and manager of political programming of the al-Furat television station, was arrested during a raid on the channel’s offices in Baghdad’s central Karrada district late on Friday, station officials said.
Al-Furat is owned by the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the biggest Shi’ite party in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government. Its leader is Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq’s most influential politicians, who has been courted by Washington and met President George W. Bush at the White House in November.
The U.S. military said in an e-mail response to questions from Reuters that Beshara had been detained in the operation to arrest his son, who was identified in an earlier statement as a suspected militia intelligence operative.
“His (Beshara) arrest had nothing to do with his place of employment or his relationship to his son,” U.S. military spokesman Major Brad Leighton said.