Head of al-Qaeda in Iraq 'killed in raid' 19 Apr 2010 The US said that its forces had dealt a devastating blow to al-Qaeda after the terror network’s top two leaders in Iraq were killed in a night-time raid. Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq [reported dead in 2007], and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, his close associate and the purported leader of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), were tracked to a safe house near Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, on Sunday night. US forces fired two missiles at the house as Iraqi ground troops stormed it.
Except that... Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri captured 08 May 2008 Iraqi forces claimed tonight to have arrested the head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq during an operation in the northern city of Mosul, one of the terrorist organisation’s last major hold-outs in the country. Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the nom de guerre of Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, was captured in a joint US-Iraqi operation, according to Iraqi military sources quoted by the Arabic news channel al-Arabiya. Al-Masri's death was reported by the Iraqi military last year and later proved to be wrong.
