Killing of Qaeda leaders 'won't end Iraq attacks'

Having noted that voter angst has been riled, propagandized, and fear-mongered to the point at which the most pressing priority for Congress is to 'fix' terrorism, it is perhaps not entirely surprising that we discover - deep down in the archives - that giving the public someone to 'hate' as opposed to something may have been an entire fiction.

The Al-Qaeda breakaway group that has seized much of northern Syria and huge tracks of neighbouring Iraq formally declared the creation of an Islamic state on Sunday in the territory under its control.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi troops backed by helicopter gunships launched an operation early Saturday aimed at dislodging Sunni militants from the northern city of Tikrit, one of two major urban centers they seized in recent weeks in a dramatic blitz across the country. After watching much of Iraq slip out of government hands, military officials sought to portray the push that began before dawn as a significant step that puts the army back on the offensive. They said the operation includes commandos, tanks and helicopters, as well as pro-government Sunni fighters and Shiite volunteers.

Iraqi authorities said on Thursday that the arrest of Al-Qaeda in Iraq's Baghdad chief six weeks ago triggered a series of events that culminated in the killing of the jihadist network's top commanders.Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the political leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and Abu Ayub al-Masri, an Egyptian militant and the insurgent group's self-styled "minister of war," died on Sunday, according to Iraqi and US officials.

Al-Qaeda has confirmed the deaths of its top two Iraq commanders in a joint US-Iraqi military raid, a US monitoring group said, days after a wave of apparent revenge attacks killed 58 Iraqis.Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayub al-Masri, who had direct links with Osama bin Laden, were reported by Iraqi and US officials to have been killed in a shootout on April 18 near Tikrit in central Iraq.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi officials said Sunday that an air strike wounded the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Pentagon officials said they had no immediate information on such a strike or Al-Baghdadi being wounded. Iraq’s Defence and Interior Ministries issued statements saying Al-Baghdadi had been wounded, without elaborating.

HandoutAbu Bakr Al-Baghdadi: A man of many names but few photos Since the masked gunmen of the Islamic State of Iraq & Al-Sham (ISIS) captured Mosul this week, raising their black flag over Iraq’s second