Qaeda leader in Iraq wounded - television reports

DUBAI, Feb 16 (Reuters) The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, has been wounded by Iraqi troops in a clash north of Baghdad, Arab television stations today quoted the Iraqi Interior Ministry as saying.

A ministry spokesman, quoted in a report by Iraq's state-run channel Al Iraqiya monitored by the BBC, indicated Masri had escaped after troops stormed a base in Balad district.

''The spokesman did not say how the injured man was identified to be Abu Ayyub al-Masri,'' Al Jazeera television said in a separate report.

The stations quoted the spokesman as saying an aide of Masri had been killed in the clash. Masri ''fled in fright'', Al Iraqiya quoted him as saying.

A US military spokesman in Baghdad said he had no information on the reports.

Masri, an Egyptian, assumed the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq after Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a US air strike in June.

Masri is also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. The US military has described him as a close Zarqawi associate who trained in Afghanistan and formed al Qaeda's first cell in Baghdad. The United States has put a 5 million dollars bounty on Masri's head.

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