Senior al Qaeda leader killed in Iraq -- ministry

BAGHDAD, May 3 (Reuters) US and Iraqi forces have killed the leader of the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, an al Qaeda-led militant group, Iraq's deputy interior minister told Reuters today.

Hussein Kamal said Abu Omar al-Baghdadi had been killed in a battle north of Baghdad. He declined to say when but he said authorities had Baghdadi's body.

US military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver declined to comment but said a news conference would be held later today to announce the ''success'' of an operation against al Qaeda.

He stressed that the topic would not be Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Iraqi officials had said Masri was killed in a fight between insurgents north of Baghdad this week. The U.S. military has been unable to confirm those reports and no body has been found.

The Islamic State in Iraq, a body set up by al Qaeda's Iraq wing and other Sunni Arab militant groups in October, has claimed responsibility for a string of attacks, including mass kidnappings, bombings and the downing of US helicopters.

It recently named a 10-man cabinet with a prime minister and portfolios including war, oil and Islamic affairs.

US officials have said that while killing senior al Qaeda figures in Iraq would be positive, it would not end the group's attacks. Al Qaeda is blamed for trying to tip the country into full-scale sectarian civil war.

US President George W Bush said yesterday al Qaeda was ''public enemy number one'' in Iraq. The Pentagon had previously called anti-US Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia the greatest threat to peace in Iraq.

REUTERS SG KP1440