Baghdad: US-led forces conducting a crackdown on Al Qaida killed a senior member of the insurgent group who was responsible for the high-profile kidnappings of several Westerners, a military spokesman said yesterday.
The US Embassy, meanwhile, said a rocket attack on Iraq's heavily fortified Green Zone on Wednesday killed four foreign contractors - one from the Philippines, one from Nepal and two from India - working for a US government contractor. It was the third straight day that extremists used rockets or mortars to hit the area where Iraq's parliament meets.
US Major General William Caldwell said the killing of Muharib Abdul-Latif Al Jubouri, described as Al Qaida's information minister, had apparently led to confused reports that Al Qaida's top leader or the head of an umbrella group of Sunni insurgents had been killed.
Caldwell said the military had conducted numerous operations against Al Qaida in Iraq over the last six days but does not have the bodies of Abu Omar Al Baghdadi and Abu Ayoub Al Masri and doesn't know "of anybody that does".
American and Iraqi forces have stepped up operations against the network following a series of high-profile car bombings and suicide attacks that killed hundreds in recent weeks despite a crackdown in Baghdad and surrounding areas.
