Saturday, September 29, 2007
Al-Qaida in Iraq is fractured, the brigadier general says.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. airstrike killed one of the most senior al-Qaida leaders in Iraq, a Tunisian linked to the kidnapping and killings last summer of American soldiers, a top commander said Friday.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson said the death of the suspected terrorist in a U.S. airstrike Tuesday south of Baghdad, and recent similar operations against al-Qaida, have left the organization in Iraq fractured.
Abu Osama al-Tunisi was killed along with two other terrorist suspects in a U.S. F-16 strike that dropped two 500-pound laser-guided bombs on a safe house where they were meeting, said the U.S. Central Command Air Forces.
“Al-Tunisi was one of the most senior leaders ... the emir of foreign terrorists in Iraq and part of the inner leadership circle,” Anderson told a Pentagon news conference.
Al-Tunisi was a leader in helping bring foreign terrorists into the country, said Anderson, chief of staff to the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno.
Speaking by videoconference from Baghdad, Anderson said that al-Tunisi operated in Youssifiyah, southwest of Baghdad, in November 2004 and became the overall emir of Youssifiyah in the summer of 2006.
His group was responsible for kidnapping American soldiers in June 2006, Anderson said.
Anderson did not name the soldiers, and Pentagon officials said they did not immediately know to whom he was referring. But three U.S. soldiers were killed that month in an ambush-kidnapping that happened while they were guarding a bridge.
Anderson said recent coalition operations have helped cut in half the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq, which had been at about 60 to 80 a month.
He credited the work of the Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement and U.S. teams.
Commanders have said that the increase in troops ordered by President Bush in January — and the increased operations that followed — have pushed militants into remote parts of the north and south of the country. Additional operations have been going after those pockets of fighters.