US Confirms Top 2 al-Qaida in Iraq Leaders Killed

Updated: 9 hours 46 minutes ago

Sharon Weinberger
Contributor

WASHINGTON (April 19) -- In what the U.S. military is describing as a "potentially devastating blow" to al-Qaida in Iraq, two of the organization's senior leaders have been killed in an Iraqi operation supported by U.S. forces.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced today the deaths of Abu Hamzah al-Muhajir, more commonly known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, al-Qaida's top leader in Iraq, and Hamid Dawud Muhammad Khalil al-Zawi, or Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the head of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq. The two were killed during a nighttime raid on what the U.S. military described as an al-Qaida safe house, U.S. forces in Iraq said in a statement confirming the deaths of the two leaders.

"The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to al-Qaida in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency," said United States Forces-Iraq Commander Gen. Raymond T. Odierno in a statement released by the U.S. military. "The government of Iraq intelligence services and security forces, supported by U.S. intelligence and special operations forces, have over the last several months continued to degrade AQI."

For the Iraqi government, the killing of el-Baghdadi is particularly symbolic, since the government has announced three previous times that the elusive militant leader has been either killed or captured. This time, however, Maliki had pictures to prove that Baghdadi was indeed dead.

The arrest of more than a dozen other associates in the action may prove to be an intelligence boon for U.S. and Iraqi forces in their hunt for more al-Qaida leaders.

"The government said the computers they seized in those hideouts showed there were communications between al-Masri and al-Baghdadi," Zeina Khodr, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Baghdad, said of the raid. "It also showed communication with al-Qaida's overseas leaders, including Osama bin Laden."

The success of the military raid could help al-Maliki, who is in the midst of trying to negotiate a political coalition after Iraq's March elections.