US says leading al Qaeda figure killed in Iraq

BAGHDAD, May 3 (Reuters) The US military said today it had killed a senior al Qaeda official in Iraq who it accused of involvement in the kidnapping of Americans Jill Carroll and Tom Fox and other foreigners.

But the military said it had no information to support claims by Iraq's Interior Ministry that Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, another senior al Qaeda figure in Iraq, had been killed.

Chief military spokesman Major-General William Caldwell identified Muharib Abdul Latif al-Jubouri, the ''senior minister of information'' for al Qaeda in Iraq, as a key figure in the separate abductions of Carroll and Fox.

''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 Baghdad.

Carroll, a journalist with the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, was abducted in January 2006 and held for 82 days before she was released. Christian peace activist Fox was kidnapped in November 2005 and his body was found in March 2006.

Caldwell said Jubouri, whose body had been identified through DNA tests, had also been involved in the kidnapping of two Germans, whom he did not identify but said they were captured in 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,'' he said.

But he had no information on the reported deaths this week of Baghdadi or Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, which US President George W Bush described yesterday as ''public enemy number one in Iraq''.

Iraq's deputy Interior Minister Hussein Kamal said Baghdadi, whose self-styled Islamic State in Iraq has claimed many major attacks, had been killed in a gunbattle with Iraqi and US forces north of Baghdad.

''If that person even exists, again we have nobody in our possession, or know of anybody that does either, alive or dead that is going through any kind of testing or analysis at this point,'' Caldwell said.

That contradicted Kamal, who earlier told Reuters: ''He died as a result of wounds sustained in clashes. The Interior Ministry has his body to carry out further checks''.

Iraqi state television broadcast images of the body of a man it identified as Baghdadi. The body lay inside a wooden coffin on the back of a truck, its head badly swollen and bruised.

Iraqi officials said earlier this week that Masri had been killed in a fight between insurgents north of Baghdad.

''His overall status, whether he's dead or alive, is actually unknown to us at this point,'' Caldwell said of Masri.

The Islamic State in Iraq was set up in October by al Qaeda in Iraq and some minor Sunni Arab insurgent groups. Al Qaeda in Iraq remains the main al Qaeda network in the country.

Baghdadi's Islamic State in Iraq recently named a 10-man cabinet with a prime minister and portfolios including war, oil and Islamic affairs.

Masri was named war minister, with Baghdadi remaining leader of the Islamic State in Iraq.

In February, a man who identified himself on an audiotape as Baghdadi vowed to widen attacks to all parts of Iraq instead of just focusing on the capital after Washington announced plans to beef up its forces in the city and drag Iraq back from the brink of sectarian civil war.

Al Qaeda is blamed for trying to foment such a war between majority Shi'ites and once-dominant Sunni Arabs.

REUTERS SG RAI1820