No indication Al Qaida chief 'wounded'

Baghdad: A spokesman said yesterday the US military has no indication that the Al Qaida in Iraq leader was wounded in a raid north of Baghdad.

An Iraqi army officer said the Al Qaida leader's deputy has been jailed south of Baghdad for a week.

An Iraqi military official, meanwhile, said the number of attacks and dead bodies have been reduced and displaced families returned to their homes due to the Baghdad security operation that began in force this week.

Iraqi army Brig Qassem Moussawi, a spokesman for the Baghdad commander, said only 10 bodies had been reported by the morgue in the capital, compared to a previous average of 40 to 50 per day.

"This shows a big reduction in terror and killing operations in Baghdad," he said on Iraqi state television.

Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig Gen Abdul Karim Khalaf said earlier yesterday that terror leader Abu Hamza Al Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub Al Masri, was wounded and an aide killed on Thursday in a clash with Iraqi forces near Balad, north of Baghdad.

Khalaf declined to say how Iraqi forces knew Al Masri had been injured, and Deputy Interior Minister Maj Gen Hussain Ali Kamal later said he could not confirm the information.

But spokesman Lt Col Christopher Garver said the US military had no information to corroborate the account.

Detained

"We do not believe that he was either killed or wounded last night," Garver said of Al Masri. He said he also could not confirm any information about the aide.

An Iraqi army officer also said Al Masri's aide, identified as Abu Abdullah Al Majemaai, had been detained on February 9 and remained in custody in a jail near Mahmoudiya, about 30 km south of Baghdad.

The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to disclose the information, said he could not comment on Al Masri's whereabouts.

Separately, the US military said a suspected Al Qaida in Iraq cell leader accused in roadside bombs and rocket attacks was detained on Thursday in Muqdadiyah, about 90 km north of Baghdad.

Al Masri took over the leadership of Al Qaida in Iraq after its charismatic leader, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, was killed in a US airstrike last year in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad. In October, false reports surfaced that Al Masri was killed in a raid, and the US military performed DNA tests on a slain militant to see if he was the Al Qaida leader.