Al-Qaeda second-in-command in Iraq killed in shootout
MUHAMMAD AL- JUWARI
BAGHDAD • U.S. and Iraqi forces said yesterday they had shot dead the secondinof al-Qaeda in Iraq, dealing a potentially important blow to the group at the heart of Iraq’s insurgency.
U. S. spokesman Lieutenant- Colonel Steve Boylan said U. S. and Iraqi forces tracked Abu Azzam to a Baghdad highrise apartment building on Sunday, where he was killed in a shootout before he could be captured alive.
“ We got specific information and intelligence that led us to him,” Lt.- Col. Boylan said. “ We’ve been tracking him for a while.”
Abu Azzam was believed to be the right-hand man of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted man in Iraq. His death suggested progress against the two-year-old insurgency, particularly as the military said Azzam was behind a surge in violence in Baghdad that has killed and maimed hundreds.
Abu Azzam “personally planned and ordered suicide car bomb attacks” in the capital and was responsible for financing for the terror group and its “international communications,” Iraqi government spokesman Laith Kubba said at a news conference in Baghdad, carried live by al-Jazeera television.
“We considered him the No. 2 al- Qaeda operative in Iraq next to Zarqawi,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Richard Myers said at a Pentagon press conference.
Mr. Kubba called Azzam’s death “a painful blow” to al- Qaeda and warned that his followers would probably carry out revenge attacks.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq said it could not confirm the death of Abu Azzam and denied he was the group’s second in command, Agence France-Presse said, citing an Internet statement. No further details were immediately available.
In the latest act of violence, a suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of Iraqi police recruits north of Baghdad, killing at least 10, police said — another in a series of such bombings in past days.
Iraqi police also said they had found 22 bodies of shooting victims near the town of Kut, southeast of Baghdad.
It is uncertain how much intelligence Azzam’s killing will deliver as he died before being questioned. U. S. and Iraqi forces tried to capture him alive but he shot at them, a statement said, and when troops returned fire, he was killed.
Mr. Kubba said Azzam was with other men at the time but it was not clear what happened to them. He said it was difficult to know how important the killing will prove to be.
“Even those members of this network who are arrested know nothing [about the organization] except noms de guerre and symbols,” Mr. Kubba told al-Jazeera.
Azzam commanded day-to-day operations in Baghdad and other cities, while financing attacks and the passage of terrorists into Iraq from abroad, the U. S. military said.
“In spring, 2005, he assumed the position of Emir of Baghdad, where he reportedly directed and controlled all terrorist activity and operations in and around the city,” it said.