Detained Qaeda man not Baghdadi - Iraqi officials

BAGHDAD, Mar 10 (Reuters) A top leader of an al Qaeda linked group arrested yesterday and initially thought to be Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was not in fact the head of the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq, Iraqi officials said today.

Baghdadi's Islamic State of Iraq, a body set up by al Qaeda's Iraq wing and some other Sunni militant groups in October, has claimed responsibility for a string of major attacks.

''We captured a figure who was a senior al Qaeda member and we suspected that he was Abu Omar al-Baghdadi but after initial investigations it was proven it was not Abu Omar al-Baghdadi.

But he was a senior al Qaeda leader,'' said Iraqi military spokesman Qassim Moussawi.

Iraqiya state television reported the man's capture yesterday, saying he was detained in the Abu Ghraib area on the western outskirts of Baghdad.

US officials will sit down with Iranian and Syrian counterparts today at a conference in Baghdad designed to stop sectarian fighting in Iraq before the conflict spreads throughout the oil-rich region. Iraq called the conference.

The one-day conference brings together mid-level officials from Iraq's neighbours, the permanent UN Security Council members -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- and Arab countries. There will be 16 delegations in all.

But attention is likely to be focused on the United States sitting down with Syria and Iran, both accused by Washington of fuelling violence in Iraq by supporting either Sunni insurgents or Shi'ite Muslim militias. Iran and Syria deny the charges.

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