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That would be before the invasion, funny that. I thought al Queda and Iraq has nothing to do with one another?Al-Qaida in Iraq leader believed dead
Mark Tran and agencies
Tuesday May 1, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Abu Ayyub Al-Masri, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq
Abu Ayyub al-Masri, previously named as leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. Photograph: AFP/Getty
The al-Qaida in Iraq leader, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, has been killed in a fight between insurgents north of Baghdad, the interior ministry claimed today.
Brigadier General Abdul Kareem Khalaf told Reuters: "We have definite intelligence reports that al-Masri was killed today."
Another source in the ministry said al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, had been killed. Brig Gen Khalaf said Iraqi and US forces were not involved. The US military said it could not confirm the death.
In February the Iraqi government said al-Masri had been wounded by Iraqi troops but escaped in a clash north of Baghdad after soldiers stormed a base near Balad.
Al-Masri, an Egyptian, assumed the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq after the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a US air strike in June 2006. The US government in 2005 set a $50,000 reward for al-Masri's capture, later raising it to $5m.
Security experts say he became a terrorist in 1982 when he joined Ayman al-Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad. He probably entered Iraq in 2002, before al-Zarqawi, and may have helped establish the first al-Qaida cell in the Baghdad area....
Don't look a dead gift horse in the mouth. Frigging good riddance.
