Al-Qaeda suspect killed during pursuit

Iraqi Security Forces killed an al-Qaeda lieutenant in the northern city of Mosul, the US military announced yesterday.

Mohammed Sultan, also known as Abu Zubair, was killed in an ambush on Friday in the course of his pursuit by Iraqi and US forces who sought the alleged terrorist in conjunction with an attack last month on Mosul police.

In another security issue, two members of the Iranian opposition group the Peoples' Mujahideen were kidnapped on a "routine logistics trip" to Baghdad after leaving Camp Ashraf, the US base where they reside, said a statement from the US military on Sunday.

The group requested that Iraqi police investigate the abduction that occurred on Aug. 4. The US military put more than 3,000 members of the group under protective custody last year at a base northeast of Baghdad.

Though former president Saddam Hussein welcomed the presence of the Peoples' Mujahideen who carried out attacks on Iran during the 1980s and 1990s.

Its presence in Iraq is currently a tricky matter for the country's fledgling Shiite-dominated government that is seeking to improve its relations with Iran.