U.S. officials urge caution over reports that al-Qaeda in Iraq leader has been killed

[Purveyor]

BAGHDAD – U.S. and Iraqi officials chased reports Tuesday that the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq was killed by rivals north of Baghdad. But U.S. authorities urged caution and warned that even if the claim were true, the death of the shadowy Abu Ayyub al-Masri would likely not spell the end of the terror movement in Iraq.
Reports of al-Masri's death first emerged from the Interior Ministry, which said the al-Qaeda leader was gunned down by rivals in his movement Tuesday at a bridge near Lake Tharthar just north of Baghdad, where the U.S. military believes al-Qaeda operates training camps.

Later, however, ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said al-Masri's death had not been confirmed. Another senior official, Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, told The Associated Press that “we are trying to investigate and confirm the report.”

Other Iraqi officials said word of the purported death came from an informant and that efforts were under way to retrieve the body. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is sensitive.

An al-Qaeda front organization denied that al-Masri, an Egyptian also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer with a $1 million bounty on his head, had been killed. The Islamic State of Iraq said in a Web statement that al-Masri was “alive and still fighting the enemy of God.”

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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20070501-1326-iraq-al-qaida.html