U.S. denies Iraqi reports al Qaeda leader dead

By Mussab Al-Khairalla and Ross Colvin October 5, 2006

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military and Iraqi government denied reports on Thursday that al Qaeda's leader in Iraq had been killed in a raid but said DNA tests would be conducted on bodies recovered after the attack to make sure.

"We believe he is still alive," U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said, dismissing claims by several Iraqi politicians that Abu Ayyub al-Masri and several associates were killed in a U.S. airstrike this week.

Masri, an Egyptian who is also known as Abu Hamza al- Muhajir, assumed the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq after Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi died in a U.S. airstrike in June.

"There was a raid recently where we thought he may have been among those killed, but now we think it is highly unlikely," Johnson told Reuters. "We are going to rule out the possibility altogether by doing DNA tests."

Another U.S. spokesman, Major General William Caldwell, told a news conference on Wednesday there was an occasion recently when troops briefly thought they had found Masri -- after the discovery near Baghdad of a video showing him wiring a car bomb. >>cont

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