Two top al-Qaida leaders have been killed in a joint operation in north of Baghdad by U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki and U.S. military said on Monday.

"A cell from our intelligence killed Abu Omer al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Musri during an operation in Tharthar area in north of Baghdad," Maliki told reporters in a televised news conference.

Maliki said that the Iraqi intelligence cell has been following the al-Qaida top leaders for a long time and the Iraqi troops managed to capture some leading Qaida militants who led the Iraqi security forces to the whereabouts of the two most wanted Qaida leaders in Iraq.

Maliki also said that his troops got support from the U.S. troops "by helping the Iraqi side in checking and verifying the intelligence reports."

"The attack was carried out by ground troops, which surrounded the targeted house, and also by using missiles," Maliki said, confirming that the U.S. troops were participating in the operation.

The attacked house was destroyed and the two bodies were found in a hole inside the devastated house, he added.

He also showed pictures of the two killed Qaida leaders at the news conference.

Abu Omer al-Baghdadi is the head of the self-style Islamic State of Iraq, which is an al-Qaida-led umbrella organization of extremist Sunni militants groups.

Abu Ayyub al-Musri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, is the top leader of al-Qaida in Iraq network, who replaced the former Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, when Zarqawi was killed in a U. S. airstrike on June 7, 2006.

Shortly after the state-run television of Iraqia aired Maliki's news conference, the U.S. military confirmed the killing of the two al-Qaida top leaders in a joint operation with the Iraqi forces in nighttime on Sunday on their safehouse in an area near the city of Tikrit, the capital of Salahudin province, some 170 km north of Baghdad.

"Iraqi security forces, supported by U.S. troops, killed the two most-senior leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq early yesterday in the culmination of a series of combined operations southwest of Tikrit, " a militray statement said.

An aide to Masri and Baghdadi's son were among the deaths, it said, adding that Iraqi security forces arrested 16 more individuals suspected in involvement with the killed top Qaida leaders.

"The death of these two terrorists is a potentially devastating blow to al-Qaida in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency," the statement said.

The death of the two top Qaida leaders is expected to undermine the terrorist organization after it received a major blow from the Sunni tribes and anti-U.S. insurgent groups who turned to cooperate with the U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces against the al-Qaida militant group after the latter exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.