U.S. says leading al Qaeda figure killed in Iraq

By Paul Tait and Mussab Al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Thursday it had killed a top al Qaeda operative in Iraq whom it accused of involvement in the kidnapping of American journalist Jill Carroll, peace activist Tom Fox and other foreigners.

U.S. military spokesman Major-General William Caldwell said Muharib Abdul Latif al-Jubouri was the "senior minister of information" for al Qaeda in Iraq.

Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier-General Abdul-Kareem Khalaf said Jubouri was also Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the leader of the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, a Qaeda-led group which has claimed many major attacks in the country.

But a statement from the group, posted on a Web site used by insurgents, said they were two different men and that Baghdadi was still alive. Jubouri, whom the group identified as its spokesman, was killed in an air raid after a clash lasting eight hours, it said.

Caldwell told a news conference that Jubouri was killed north of Baghdad on Tuesday, as part of an offensive against al Qaeda called "Operation Rat Trap".

"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.

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

The Christian Science Monitor said on Thursday Carroll did not recognise the photograph of Jubouri released by the U.S. military, but said she thought it might be of a kidnapper "who she had taken to be a low-status guard".