A hunch, and a salute...

"I have a hunch that today's arrest of the Deputy Health Minister, Hakim al-Zamili, by Iraqi commandoes has something to do with the abduction on November 19, 2006 of Ammar al-Saffar, who formerly occupied the same post at the Ministry of Health. Al-Saffar (born 1950 in Baghdad, graduate of Mustansiriyya University with a degree in Business Administration, left Iraq in 1978) was a high level Da'awa Party member and was close to both ex-PM Ibrahim al-Ja'afari and current PM Nouri al-Maliki. He was abducted from his family home near Maghrib Street in Waziriya by a renegade squad of the Mahdi Army, according to a knowledgable source. The source added that al-Saffar had been threatened by the Sadrists who control the Health Ministry to give up his post for one of their own or else they would hurt him or his family. Al-Saffar had been living outside the Green Zone with his elderly mother, and with minimal security. His wife and children live in London."
Talisman Gate