U.S. Confirms Deaths of Senior Al Qaeda in Iraq Leaders

WASHINGTON, April 19, 2010 — -- The U.S. government today confirmed that the top two leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq were killed in a joint U.S- Iraqi raid this weekend that Vice President Joe Biden says dealt "devastating blows" to the insurgent group's operations.

The deaths of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri were first announced in Baghdad earlier today by Iraqi Prime Minster Nouri al Maliki.

The two insurgent leaders were killed in a nighttime raid Sunday on a safe house about six miles (10 kilometers) southwest of the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit. The raid resulted from a series of Iraqi led joint operations over the previous week that led to the safe house.

Al-Masri was described by U.S. officials as being the military leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni terror group that has carried out bloody attacks on U.S. forces and Iraqi civilians. Al-Masri had replaced the notorious Abu Musab al Zarqawi as head of the group after Zarqawi was killed in a June 2006 air strike.

Al-Baghdadi was the head of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group that al Qaeda in Iraq claimed had united the country's Sunni insurgency. Premature reports of al-Baghdadi's capture or death in recent years had led to speculation that the elusive figure may not have existed at all, and was just a paper figurehead.

However, a statement from U.S. Forces Iraq confirming the deaths of the insurgent leaders identified al Baghdadi as being Hamid Dawud Muhammad Khalil al Zawi.

Noticeably different from past claims of al-Baghdadi or al-Masri's demise were the number of senior U.S. officials who stepped forward to confirm the terrorist leaders death today.

Biden told reporters that their deaths were "devastating blows to al Qaeda-Iraq. But equally important, in my view, is this action demonstrates the improved security, strength and capacity of Iraqi security forces."

He emphasized that the operation was Iraqi led and "was based on intelligence the Iraqi security forces themselves developed following their capture of a senior AQI leader last month.""