Al Qaeda leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri killed in Baghdad

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Al Qaeda leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri has been killed in Baghdad

The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was killed on Tuesday in an internal fight between militants north of Baghdad, the Interior Ministry spokesman said, but the U.S. military said it could not confirm the report.

Spokesman Brigadier-General Abdul Kareem Khalaf told Reuters: "We have definite intelligence reports that al Masri was killed today". He said the battle happened near a bridge in the small town of al-Nibayi, north of Baghdad.

Another source in the ministry said Masri had been killed in what he described as "probably score-settling within al Qaeda itself".

Both Khalaf and the ministry source said the authorities did not have Masri's body, but the source added "our people had seen the body".

In February, Interior Ministry sources said Masri had been wounded in a gunbattle north of Baghdad, but those reports turned out not to be true. Ali al-Dabbagh, spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government, said the government was conducting further checks.

"Primary information indicates he was killed, but when you have such a senior figure like Masri you have to do further checks, including a DNA test," Dabbagh told Dubai-based al-Arabiya satellite channel in a telephone interview.

U.S. Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, said the military was also checking the reports.

"I hope that it is true, but we want to be very careful to make sure," Garver said.