Al-Qaida Official Killed in Raid, Says US

United States defence officials in Washington have confirmed that Abu Azzam, a leading deputy to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq, has been killed.

The US network CBS News, quoting Pentagon officials, reported that American forces killed Azzam in a house raid in Baghdad on Sunday.

CBS described Azzam as Zarqawi’s top deputy, in control of financing foreign fighters coming into Iraq.

But al Qaida in Iraq denied that Abu Azzam was the number two leader of the organisation and said it was not confirmed that he was killed.

“Abu Azzam was one of al Qaida’s many soldiers and is the leader of one of its battalions operating in Baghdad,” the group said in an internet statement.

It called the US and Iraqi claims that he was the group’s top deputy “a futile attempt … to raise the morale of their troops.”

It was unclear if Azzam was the same individual as a man whose name appeared in February on a US list of the 29 most-wanted supporters of insurgent groups in Iraq.

Sheikh Abdalluh Abu Azzam, also known as Amir of Anbar, was listed as a Zarqawi lieutenant with a pounds 28,100 reward for his capture US and Iraqi officials in Baghdad said they had no additional information beyond what the defence officials in Washington had reported about the killing.

Earlier this month, al-Zarqawi declared “all-out war” on Shiites and vowed to kill anyone participating in the referendum.

Meanwhile, in northern Iraq, a top aide to al-Zarqawi surrendered to police in the city of Mosul, Iraqi army Brigadier General Ali Attalah said. The aide, Abdul Rahman Hasan Shahin, was one of the most wanted figures in Mosul, Attalah said.

A suicide bomber attacked Iraqis applying for jobs as policemen, killing nine and wounding 21.

Elsewhere, Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visited Baghdad to review the alliance’s training mission for the Iraqi military.

The unannounced visit was de Hoop Scheffer’s second trip to Iraq. He was accompanied by the alliance’s supreme commander for operations, US General James Jones.

Nato has for more than a year been training a small group of senior Iraqi military officers and is planning to expand that mission to include a staff academy to train the higher ranks of the Iraq’s armed forces