Confusion Over Fate Of Iraq Al Qaeda Chief
Spokesman Casts Doubt Over Whether He Was Wounded
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 16, 2007
(CBS/AP) Conflicting reports emerged Friday on whether al Qaeda's leader in Iraq was wounded in a gunbattle, as U.S. and Iraqi forces pushed deeper into Sunni militant strongholds in Baghdad — where cars rigged with explosives greeted their advance.
A spokesman said Friday the U.S. military has no indication that the al Qaeda in Iraq leader was killed or wounded in a raid north of Baghdad, while an Iraqi army officer said his deputy has been jailed south of Baghdad for a week.
Earlier, a spokesman for Iraq's interior ministry said the terror leader had been wounded and that an aide was killed.
Chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan says the ministry told CBS News that Iraqi police got into a firefight late Thursday night in a town north of Baghdad. Just outside this town, they believe al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri was wounded and a top aid killed, but they provided no evidence and they wouldn't say if he's in Iraqi custody or not.
The deputy interior minister says he has no information about such a clash.
Al-Masri took over the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq after its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike last June.
The series of car bomb blasts Friday, which killed at least seven civilians, touched all corners of Baghdad. But it did little to disrupt the security sweep seeking to weaken militia groups' ability to fight U.S.-allied forces — and each other — as Iraq slips further into factional bloodshed.
The number of Iraqi civilians killed in Baghdad fell drastically overnight, an Iraqi military official said Friday, crediting the joint security operation.
Iraqi army Brig. Gen. Qassim Moussawi, a spokesman for the Baghdad commander, said only 10 bodies had been reported by the morgue in the capital, compared to an average of 40 to 50 per day.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, U.S. commander for Baghdad, said the quiet night is also likely due to militia members laying low around Baghdad, "and watching to see what it is we do and how we do it. How long that will last, we don't know."
Around the capital, U.S. and Iraqi soldiers set up dozens of roadway checkpoints and conducted top-to-bottom searches of vehicles and motorbikes. Waiting in a snarl of traffic at one blockade, Mohammed al-Jubouri said people are willing to put up with delays so long as the security sweep shows some results after bombings that have killed hundreds of civilians this year.
"We are fed up with these stalling words," al-Jubouri said. "We want only the security and stabilization."
Three days into the full-on security surge in Baghdad, the military is reporting little resistance, but Logan says "it's still early days," and nobody on the ground is underestimating the militas' continuing potency to inflict damage.
Friday's bomb attacks highlighted the critical struggle to gain the upper hand on Baghdad's streets. The Pentagon hopes its current campaign of arrests and arms seizures will convince average Iraqis that militiamen are losing ground. Yet each explosion is another reminder of the militants' resources and resolve.
Most of the latest resistance has come from Sunni factions, which perceive their Saddam Hussein-era influence slipping away as the majority Shiites extend their political muscle and bolster ties to powerful Iran.
Troops taking part in the security operations on Baghdad's dangerous Haifa Street have described one of their more difficult tasks to Logan; telling residents that if they can leave their homes and come back when more American soldiers show up, they'd be advised to do so.
In other developments:
• Violence and insecurity in Iraq could cause as many as 1 million Iraqis to flee their homes this year, the world's migration body said Friday. "The numbers of people that are being displaced are increasing everyday," said Jemini Pandaya, spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration. Pandaya said the organization's estimate was made "on the assumption that security conditions will continue much as they are."
• A Marine lance corporal cracked jokes and lifted the lifeless hand of an Iraqi civilian whom his squad had just shot, slapping it across the dead man's face, a sailor testified Thursday. The government called Seaman Recruit Melson J. Bacos of Franklin, Wis., as a witness in the sentencing hearing for Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington, who pleaded guilty Tuesday to kidnapping and conspiracy.
The Amreican reinforcements, authorized under President Bush's new plan for Iraq, aren't expected for another two months.
"They are up against a lot. There aren't enough Iraqi forces or American forces…So it's still a long haul," Logan said on CBS News' The Early Show.
In Baghdad's Dora neighborhood — a longtime Sunni militant hotbed — two parked cars wired with explosives were triggered as a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol rolled past. The convoy was unharmed, but the blast killed at least four civilians and wounded 15.
Control of the Dora district, a once upscale neighborhood favored by Saddam's regime, is important as a gateway between Baghdad and the Shiite-dominated south. Two other car bomb blasts came as security forces moved through the capital, killing at least three civilians.
Outside Baghdad, troops also faced Sunni ambushes. In Buhriz, about 30 miles northeast of the capital, Sunni gunmen and soldiers from the 1st Squadron, 12th Cavalry Regiment engaged in a 20-minute firefight.
U.S. Bradley fighting vehicles fired 25mm rounds into homes shielding the gunmen, said an Associated Press reporter traveling with the unit.
No U.S. casualties were reported, and the militant toll was not known. Separately, however, a U.S. Marine was killed in combat in Iraq's western Anbar province, a Sunni militant stronghold.
