BAGHDAD (Agencies)
The U.S. military denied on Friday earlier reports saying the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq Abu Ayyub al-Masri, known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, who carries a U.S. bounty of five million dollars, had been captured by security forces.
"He has not been detained," a U.S. military official told Reuters, without giving further details. Several Iraqi officials had earlier said Masri had been captured in an operation late on Wednesday.
State television Al-Iraqiya reported on Thursday that a man calling himself as Muhajir was captured by Iraqi forces in the northern province of Nineveh.
U.S. military spokeswoman Major Peggy Kageleiry said the detained individual was not Muhajir, whose real name according to the military is Abu Ayyub al-Masri.
"They did not catch Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. Somebody with same name but not connected with him. It is not him," Kageleiry told AFP.
When asked if the military confirmed Muhajir was not in the custody of security forces, she said: "I confirm that."
"He was arrested in Wad al-Hajar region of Nineveh during a raid yesterday (Wednesday)," Major General Abdul Karim Khalaf told Al-Iraqiya TV. "Now we are conducting more investigations to confirm whether he is Abu Hamza."
Khalaf said the arrest came after another man close to the detained individual said al-Qaeda chief was in a house in Wad al-Hajar area.
"The police then raided the area and captured the man who said 'I am Abu Hamza al-Muhajir'."
Al-Qaeda in Iraq was headed by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi until he was killed in a U.S. air strike in June 2006. His successor, Masri, was Zarqawi's close associate, and has a U.S. bounty of $5 million on his head.
Duraid Kashmula, the governor of Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, also said the detained man had confessed to being Masri.
"When police entered the house, they found him asleep," Kashmula said, adding the suspect was alone.
"These is no doubt that the person arrested is Masri. The operation was very quick and easy. There were no clashes."
U.S. officials blame al-Qaeda in Iraq for most big bombings in the country, including an attack on a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006 that sparked a wave of sectarian carnage that nearly tipped Iraq into all-out civil war.
But a build-up of U.S. troops last year allowed the military to focus a series of offensives against the group. The emergence of Sunni Arab tribal security units also helped to provide intelligence on al Qaeda activities. |
