British troops in Iraq kill bin Laden lieutenant

BAGHDAD, Sep 25 (Reuters) British troops in Iraq said today they had killed one of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's top global lieutenants, who escaped from a US prison in Afghanistan last year.

Omar Faruq was shot dead while resisting arrest today during a pre-dawn raid by about 200 British troops in Iraq's second biggest city, Basra, British military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge said.

US leaders have described Faruq as the top al Qaeda operative in southeast Asia. He was caught in Indonesia in 2002 and held at a high-security detention centre at Bagram airbase north of the Afghan capital Kabul until his escape last year.

''The individual had been tracked across Iraq and was in hiding in Basra,'' Burbridge said, calling him a ''very, very significant man''.

''Two companies (about 200 troops) launched the operation in the early hours of this morning. The troops returned to base without any multinational force casualties.'' Faruq, once believed to be the main link between bin Laden's followers and the Jemaah Islamiah militant group blamed for bombings in Indonesia, was one of four men who escaped from Bagram in July last year.

Washington did not reveal that he had got away until November, when defence lawyers demanded he be produced as a witness at the trial of a US army sergeant accused of abusing prisoners in Bagram.

US officials were then obliged to reveal that he could not testify because he had escaped.

The escape caused embarrassment for Washington, changes to security at Bagram and a massive manhunt in Afghanistan which failed to track down the four prisoners.

Burbridge said Faruq was born outside of Iraq to Iraqi parents but declined to give further information about his identity or role in al Qaeda.

A man calling himself Faruq al-Iraqi and claiming to be one of the four Bagram escapees appeared in a video on an Islamist Web site in February this year, saying al Qaeda would attack Americans inside the United States.

''I say to the Americans ... we will fight them ... in Iraq and in their country,'' he said.

''They (Americans) will not be able to stop the march of Jihad ... with their checkpoints, forces, machinery, advanced equipment.

No matter how strong or equipped they are they will not defeat the Almighty.'' Burbridge said, Faruq was hiding in Basra and not necessarily believed to be operating there. The mainly Shi'ite southern Iraqi city does not have a large presence of the Sunni militant group al Qaeda, whose Iraq branch has claimed responsibility for attacks on Shi'ites.

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