Insurgents reported to have killed al-Qa'ida commander
Wednesday, 2 May 2007
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The leader of al-Qa'ida in Iraq may have been killed fighting other insurgents, according to the Iraqi government, which has been trying to recover his body.
Unconfirmed reports say that Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the organisation's Egyptian-born leader, was killed either by local Sunni tribes or other insurgents at a bridge at Raji, north of Baghdad.
"Iraqi security forces and multinational forces are trying to retrieve the body for visual identification and DNA tests," a spokesman for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said. However, an Iraqi umbrella insurgent group denied the claims.
Al Masri became leader of al-Qa'ida in Iraq in June 2006. The US and the Iraqi government have been trying to encourage a breach between al-Qa'ida and other insurgents for almost as long as the four-year-old war has lasted. So far, there has been little sign of success. There is the additional problem that anti al-Qa'ida Sunni groups are often equally anti-American.
The Sunni insurgency has always been highly decentralised and divided. That has limited the extent to which it needs an elaborate organisation or command structure.
Al-Qa'ida in Iraq has specialised in suicide bombings against Shia civilians. It has targeted US forces far less frequently. The suicide attacks have played a central role in provoking a sectarian civil war as Sunni civilians are forced to seek the protection of Sunni insurgents against Shia militias seeking revenge.
The divisions between the different Sunni groups have not had any effect on the level of American casualties, with 104 soldiers killed last month and another 12 British troops killed in or around Basra.
The Iraqi Ministry of the Interior said 1,501 Iraqi civilians were killed last month, though it is unclear how the figure was calculated.
There are signs too that the Shia are beginning to retaliate and the bombings have tended to discredit the US military "surge" in the Baghdad security plan.
