Iraq Interior Ministry Claims Abu Ayyub al-Masri Killed
Published by Staff May 1st, 2007 in World.
Iraq’s Interior Ministry says al-Qaida in Iraq leader, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, has been killed in a clash among members of his insurgent group.
Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf says the fighting took place Tuesday in an area north of Baghdad. He says intelligence reports indicate that Ayyub al-Masri was killed.
U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col Christopher Garver says the military can not confirm the claim, but is investigating.
Masri, an Egyptian, assumed the leadership of the terrorist group after Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in June 2006.
In other news, Iraqi officials say gunmen have attacked two buses south of Baghdad, killing at least 14 passengers, including women and children.
Police say several people were wounded in the attacks that took place today near the towns of Iskandariya and Latifiya.
Insurgents have increasingly focused their attacks outside the capital since U.S. and Iraqi forces began a security crackdown in Baghdad in mid-February.
The U.S. military also says coalition forces killed five terrorists and detained 20 suspects during overnight raids across Iraq.
And, a U.S. airstrike killed two insurgents who were setting up a bomb on a local road north of Baghdad on Monday.
Source: VOA
It is interesting to me that Portable Planet would speak of a “crackdown” rather than a surge and of insurgents focusing on attacks outside of the capital rather than crediting the military surge for driving out insurgents from the capital. The only thing I can imagine is that if the ideas of a military surge and that of driving out insurgents were used in the same narrative, people might associate the two as somehow linked - say by some kind of plan or strategy.
The reader must question the honesty of such reporting that would try to disguise such linkages.