A top leader of al-Qaida reportedly killed in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The Iraqi government said Tuesday that it was investigating reports from "reliable sources" that the leader of al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, had been killed in an ambush by a rival insurgent faction.

Iraqi officials, desperate to show gains against a relentless insurgency, have in the past trumpeted the killing or capture of major insurgent leaders — including al-Masri — only to retract the claims later.

American military commanders said they could not confirm the reports. "Because of misreporting about the fate of senior leaders in the past," the U.S. military is "going to be doubly sure before we attempt to confirm or deny anything," said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, an American military spokesman in Baghdad.

"Clearly, taking a major terrorist off the battlefield is an important thing, and if we can confirm it, if this did happen, without question it would be a significant and positive development," Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, said in a teleconference with reporters in Washington. "That said, I would not expect it to in any way bring to an end al-Qaida's activities in Iraq."

There were conflicting accounts of the fighting that led to the reported death of al-Masri.

Kareem Khalaf, and Interior Ministry spokesman, citing the ministry's intelligence sources, said al-Masri was killed in an ambush in the Nibaee region north of Baghdad by a faction within al-Qaida. But the spokesman did not provide a reason for the attack.

The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella insurgent organization that includes al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, issued a statement on Tuesday denying that al-Masri had been killed.

A former Iraqi army officer who said he was a leader of an armed resistance movement based in Anbar province said in a telephone interview that al-Masri was killed in fighting between al-Qaida in Mesopotamia and militias tied to Sunni Arab tribes northwest of Baghdad. The resistance leader said the tribal militias were cooperating with Iraqi security forces and had supported the opening of police stations in their region against the wishes of al-Qaida in Mesopotamia.

In recent months, some Sunni tribes in Anbar province and elsewhere in the country have allied with government forces to fight al-Qaida in Mesopotamia. The sheiks, some of whom have been involved in the anti-American resistance, have opposed al-Qaida's efforts to impose a fundamentalist Islamic state in Anbar and to dominate the insurgency.