Top Qaeda In Iraq Aide Killed
U.S. and Iraqi forces killed a top lieutenant of al Qaeda in Iraq, the country's most feared insurgent group, in a raid in Baghdad over the weekend, the U.S. military said Tuesday.
As CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin first reported Monday, Abdullah Abu Azzam was a top aide to the organization's leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, controlling finances for the group's foreign and Iraqi fighters and running its operations in the capital.
He was on a U.S. military list of the 29 most wanted insurgents in Iraq, issued in February. The military had put a $50,000 reward on his head.
Al Qaeda in Iraq has been one of the most prominent guerrilla groups in Iraq, carrying out devastating suicide attacks that have killed hundreds.
It was not immediately clear what effect Abu Azzam's death would have on the group. The U.S. military has claimed to have killed or captured leading al-Zarqawi aides in the past and attacks have continued unabated — though Abu Azzam appeared to be a more significant figure.
Meanwhile, a suicide bomber with explosives hidden under his clothing, slipped into a police building in Baqouba, 30 miles north of Baghdad, where the Iraqis were submitting applications to join Iraq's Quick Reaction Police Force, said a police commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about his security.
Nine Iraqis were killed and 21 wounded in the blast, said Adhid Mita'ab, an official in Baqouba General Hospital.
In other developments:
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer made an unannounced visit the Iraqi capital to review the alliance's training mission for the Iraqi military.
It was de Hoop Scheffer's second trip to Iraq. He was accompanied by the alliance's supreme commander for operations, U.S. Gen. James L. Jones. NATO has for more than a year been training a small group of senior Iraqi military officers and is planning to expand that mission to include a staff academy to train the higher ranks of the Iraq's armed forces.
Abu Azzam was killed when U.S. and Iraqi forces, acting on a tip from an Iraqi civilian and U.S. intelligence, raided a high-rise apartment building in Baghdad early Sunday, Boylan told The Associated Press. "They went in to capture him, he did not surrender and he was killed in the raid," Boylan said.
Another al Qaeda in Iraq figure was killed early Monday in U.S. air raids in the western city of Qaim, on the border with Syria, said Gen. Wafiq al-Samaraei, the Iraqi president's national security adviser. Speaking to Al-Jazeera television, al-Samaraei identified the man only as "Abu Naseer" and said he was prominent in the group's operations in western Iraq.
He said 28 others were also killed in the air strike. The U.S. military confirmed that strikes were carried out against an insurgent "safe house" in Qaim but did not say if there were any casualties.
Also on Monday, al-Zarqawi's top aide in the city of Mosul, Abdul Rahman Hasan Shahin, surrendered to the Iraqi military, Iraqi Brig. Gen. Ali Attalah said. The aide, was one of the most wanted figures in Mosul, Attalah said.
But it appeared Abu Azzam was the most prominent figure to fall. He had claimed responsibility for the assassinations of a number of top politicians, including a car bomb in May 2004 that killed Izzadine Saleem, the president of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, and a July 2004 attack that killed the governor of Nineveh province, where Mosul is located, the military said.
He was also known as the "amir," or "prince" of Anbar, the Western province that has been the heartland of Iraq's Sunni Arab-led insurgency.
Boylan said Abu Azzam was one of the leaders — if not the main leader — responsible for "funneling or controlling the funding flow for the al Qaeda in Iraq for its local and forn fighters. We believe he also was the planner for the Baghdad operation" of the organization.
His killing "will stop anything he was planning that needed further development. Anytime you take out a top player in an organization, it is bound to have a big effect. Whoever takes his place, we will come after him next," Boylans said.
Politicians and insurgents in Iraq's Arab Sunni minority have urged Iraqis to boycott the referendum or vote "no." They believe a charter will fracture the country and seal the domination of the Shiite majority.
During his visit to Iraq, De Hoop Scheffer hoisted a NATO flag over the alliance's training mission headquarters in Baghdad and said the mission sent an important message that NATO nations were "reaffirming their commitments to Iraq."
The NATO training mission has 165 alliance personnel in Iraq and aims to turn out 900 Iraqi officers a year. Although it is dwarfed by the U.S.-led coalition efforts to forge new Iraqi forces, alliance commanders stress the importance of their mission to train senior commanders.
Political opposition led by France and Germany has prevented the alliance from taking a wider role in Iraq and from helping equip Iraqi forces with tanks and other military hardware.
Sixteen of the 26 NATO nations are participating in the mission in Iraq. Others are providing funding or are training Iraqis outside the country.