US says kills Qaeda figure linked to Iraq abductions

BAGHDAD, May 3 (Reuters) US forces have killed a senior figure from al Qaeda in Iraq who was accused of the kidnapping last year of US journalist Jill Carroll and other foreigners, the US military said today.

US military spokesman Major-General William Caldwell said Muharib Abdul Latif al-Jubouri, the ''senior minister of information'' for al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed north of Baghdad on Tuesday.

''We killed him .. west of Taji on the first day of May,'' Caldwell told a news conference, referring to a town north of the capital.

Caldwell said Jubouri had also been involved in the kidnapping of American Tom Fox and two Germans.

Carroll, a journalist with the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, was held for more than two months before being released.

Fox was kidnapped in November 2005 and his body was found in March 2006.

''When we can pick up someone like that who has that kind of history in being associated with the kidnapping and killing of foreign nationals in this country, that's significant,'' Caldwell said.

Caldwell said the body of Jubouri he had been identified though DNA tests.

REUTERS SG PM1805