The leader of Al-Qaida in Iraq was killed yesterday in a fight
between insurgents north of Baghdad, the Interior Ministry
spokesman said, but US military officials appeared to cast doubt on
the report.
Raising further question marks on the purported killing of Abu
Ayyub al-Masri, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told
Iraqiya state television: "This does not represent an official
government announcement but is only information that reached the
Iraqi Interior Ministry about internal fighting between groups and
within Al-Qaida."
There has been growing friction between Sunni Islamist Al-Qaida
and other Sunni Arab insurgent groups over Al-Qaida's
indiscriminate killing of civilians and its imposition of an
austere brand of Islam in the areas where it holds sway.
If true, al-Masri's killing would signal a deepening split at a
time when the Shi'ite-led government is trying to woo some
insurgent groups into the political process.
Interior Ministry spokesman, Brigadier-General Abdul Kareem
Khalaf, said al-Masri was killed in a battle near a bridge in the
small town of Al-Nibayi, north of Baghdad.
"We have definite intelligence reports that al-Masri was killed
today," he said.
Both Khalaf and another Interior Ministry source said the Iraqi
authorities did not have al-Masri's body, but the source added that
"our people had seen the body".
Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, citing security and
intelligence reports, said he understood al-Masri had been killed
on Monday.
The self-styled Islamic State in Iraq denied al-Masri was
killed. "The Islamic State in Iraq assures the Islamic nation about
the safety of Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, may God save him, and
that he is still fighting the enemies," said the Qaida-linked group
in a statement posted on a website used by militants.
The US military was checking the reports, said
Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver, a spokesman.
"We are in discussions with the Iraqis over how they obtained
this intelligence. If we do have a body, we are going to conduct
DNA tests, and that will take several days. If there is no body,
that makes it harder," Garver said.
In February, Interior Ministry sources said al-Masri had been
wounded in a gunbattle north of Baghdad, but those reports turned
out not to be true. There were also reports in October that he had
been killed, which again were incorrect.
Al-Masri, believed to be Egyptian and who is also known as Abu
Hamza al-Muhajir, assumed the leadership of Al-Qaida in Iraq after
Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a US air
strike in June 2006. The United States has a $5 million bounty on
al-Masri's head.
Sunni threat
On the political front, Iraq's main Sunni bloc is considering
quitting the Shi'ite-led government because it believes the
concerns of Sunnis are not being addressed, members of the bloc
including the vice president said yesterday.
Some members of the Sunni Accordance Front have been urging the
bloc for several months to pull out of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri
Al-Maliki's cabinet, partly over accusations that reconciliation
with minority Sunni Arabs has moved too slowly.
The bloc has six ministers in the government and a withdrawal
would be a blow to Al-Maliki and raise questions about how
representative his administration would remain.
(China Daily May 2, 2007)