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

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

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.

By Ahmed Rasheed

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.

The Al-Qaeda-inspired group that led the charge in capturing two key Sunni-dominated cities in Iraq this week vowed on Thursday to march on to Baghdad, raising fears about the Shiite-led government’s ability to slow the assault following the insurgents’ lightning gains. Fighters from the militant group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham took Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on Wednesday as soldiers and security forces abandoned their posts and yielded ground once controlled by U.S. troops.

BAGHDAD — Al-Qaeda’s branch in Iraq claimed responsibility Tuesday for audacious raids on two high-security prisons on the outskirts of Baghdad this week that killed dozens and set free hundreds of inmates, including some of its followers. The statement issued in the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq, was posted on an online jihadist forum. It said months of planning went into the highly co-ordinated assaults on the prisons in Abu Ghraib and Taji that began late Sunday.

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.