The leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq was killed yesterday in a fight between insurgents north of Baghdad, an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman said, but the US military said it could not confirm the report.
There has been growing friction between Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda and other Sunni Arab insurgent groups over al-Qaeda's indiscriminate killing of civilians and its imposition of an austere brand of Islam in the areas where it holds sway.
If true, the death of Abu Ayyub al-Masri would signal a deepening split at a time when the Shiite-led government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is trying to woo some insurgent groups into the political process.
The spokesman, Brigadier-General Abdul Kareem Khalaf, said al-Masri was killed in a battle near a bridge in the small town of al-Nibayi.
"We have definite intelligence reports that al-Masri was killed today," he said.
Both Khalaf and another Interior Ministry source said the Iraqi authorities did not have al-Masri's body, but the source added that "our people had seen the body."
Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih said he understood Masri had been killed on Monday.
"We too have security and intelligence reports that Abu Ayyub al-Masri was killed as a result of fighting between insurgents and al-Qaeda yesterday near Taji," Salih said.
The other ministry source said Masri, who is believed to be an Egyptian, had been killed in what he described as "probably score-settling within al-Qaeda."
In February, ministry sources said Masri had been wounded in a gunbattle north of Baghdad, but those reports turned out not to be true. There were also reports last October that he had been killed, which again were incorrect.
Meanwhile, attacks killed 25 people across Iraq yesterday, including 11 people shot dead in a minibus headed south from Baghdad to the mainly Shiite provincial capital of Hilla.
Witnesses said six gunmen in two vehicles swooped down on the minibus and riddled it with bullets, an official said.
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