US denies Qaeda leader dead, Baghdad push unopposed

BAGHDAD, Feb 16 (Reuters) US and Iraqi forces met little resistance as they swept through Baghdad today in their biggest crackdown on sectarian militias and the US military said it had no sign that the al Qaeda leader in Iraq had been hurt.

An Iraqi Interior Ministry source said earlier Abu Ayyub al-Masri was wounded yesterday when Iraqi forces intercepted a group of al Qaeda militants heading to a volatile town north of Baghdad.

An al Qaeda-backed Iraqi group also denied Masri had been wounded in a clash north of Baghdad, and said the report had been fabricated by the Iraqi government.

''We are pretty confident that Masri was not killed or wounded.

In fact, we believe that Masri was not even involved in any kind of gun battle yesterday,'' Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver, a US military spokesman, told Reuters.

Two Interior Ministry sources who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity declined to give details of Masri's whereabouts or say how security forces knew he had been wounded.

They said an aide of Masri had been killed in the clash, which one of the sources said occurred on a road when the militants were travelling to the town of Samarra.

On the streets of Baghdad, Iraqi and US troops were out in force, manning checkpoints and searching vehicles for weapons under a new crackdown Iraqis hope will stabilise the city after four years of war and sectarian killings.

The Baghdad crackdown aims to clear neighbourhoods of militants and weapons and then secure them in a bid to break the power of Shi'ite militias and Sunni insurgents.

US Major Steven Lamb, a spokesman for US forces stationed in Baghdad, said the offensive was meeting little resistance from militias and insurgents.

''I wouldn't say there has been a high level of resistance. I mean if you take a look at the stuff that was going on yesterday, we had relatively few incidents, but that may change today,'' Lamb said.

''It's really too early to say if this is going to be a success or ... failure. But so far everyone is very pleased.'' Lamb said sweeps had been conducted in known hot spots, such as the Shi'ite stronghold of Kadhimiya, Sunni-dominated Adhamiya and the districts of Rusafa, Karrada and Rashid.

5 MILLION DOLLARS BOUNTY 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 2006.

Iraqi officials have blamed Sunni al Qaeda in Iraq for destroying a holy Shi'ite shrine in Samarra a year ago, an act that unleashed a surge in sectarian bloodletting that has driven Iraq closer to all-out civil war.

The US military has described Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, as a close Zarqawi associate. Washington has a 5 million dollars bounty on Masri's head.

But military analysts say many militiamen are likely to have left Baghdad or are lying low until the operation is completed.

President Jalal Talabani said yesterday he believed anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had ordered heads of his Mehdi Army militia to leave Iraq.

Washington calls the militia, which rose up twice against American forces in 2004, the greatest threat to Iraq's security.

US and Iraqi forces have arrested hundreds of its members in recent months.

Some Shi'ite officials outside Sadr's movement say the militia wants to avoid a battle to protect the young cleric's political gains. Sadr's movement holds a quarter of the parliamentary seats in the ruling Shi'ite Alliance of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The US military has said Sadr is in Iran, but his aides insist he is in the Iraqi holy Shi'ite city of Najaf.

Lamb said there had been no major operations in Sadr City under the new offensive.

''But the overall focus of the Baghdad security plan is to stop sectarian violence. Wherever it starts to rear its head, we will go,'' he said.

REUTERS KR BD2306