US and Iraqi forces kill country's al Qaeda leaders

12 April 2012

The US today confirmed that the two leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq had been killed.

Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the killings of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri at a news conference in Baghdad and showed photographs of their bloody corpses.

The US military said the pair were killed in a night raid on their safehouse yesterday near Tikrit, the hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

US commander General Raymond Odierno said the deaths were potentially the most significant blow to al Qaeda since the beginning of the insurgency.

Al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, is believed to have helped form the first al Qaeda cell in Baghdad with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Zarqawi, who was killed in June 2006.

US commanders have previously cast doubt on whether al-Baghdadi was a real man. He led radical group The Islamic State in Iraq, which was made up of several Sunni militant organisations.

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