By Ernesto Londono
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 16, 2007; A13
BAGHDAD, Feb. 15 -- The leader of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, who is known by the alias Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was injured in a clash with Iraqi police Thursday night, a spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.
One of Masri's deputies, Abu Abdullah al-Mujamie, was killed in the gunfight, which occurred about 11 p.m. near Samarra, ministry spokesman Abdul Kareem al-Kinani said.
U.S. officials have said Masri took over the leadership of the insurgent group following the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by U.S. forces in a June 2006 airstrike. In December, Iraqi officials said security forces had killed another aide to Masri, whom officials describe as a longtime associate of Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
A senior al-Qaeda in Iraq leader, Abu Amar al-Dulaimi, confirmed the death of Mujamie, whom he described as Masri's "personal escort," but questioned whether Masri was even in the area. "We don't know if [Masri] was with him or not, or if he was wounded or not," Dulaimi said Thursday night in a phone interview.
Kinani, the ministry spokesman, said Iraqi forces conducted the operation "without U.S. intervention," but Dulaimi said people in the area reported seeing helicopters and fighter planes roaming the sky afterward, a possible indication of a U.S. role in the clash.
Also Thursday, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has ordered his top deputies to leave Iraq in order to ease the implementation of the Baghdad security plan, which U.S. and Iraqi forces began to roll out this week.
Sadr, the leader of the powerful Mahdi Army militia, recently went to Iran, according to U.S. officials.
During a news conference Thursday night, Talabani said Sadr told government officials that he was "eager for the stability of the state and the success of the security plan. He gave the government the green light to detain any outlaws."
In Washington on Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said he believed that Sadr's followers were concerned about the new operation to secure Baghdad and suggested that Sadr and his militia would "go to ground" over the coming months. "And the question is, during that space . . . can we and the Iraqis provide enough security so that economic development, improvements in governance, political reconciliation can all begin to make real progress in Iraq?" Gates said.
Gates said it was "an assumption" that Sadr has gone to Iran. "I haven't seen any factual proof of it at this point, but that's what people -- that's what I hear people think," Gates said.
In recent days, some of Sadr's aides in Iraq have denied that Sadr has left the country.
The security plan includes an increase in U.S. and Iraqi troops, a crackdown on civilians carrying weapons and increased security measures at the Iranian and Syrian borders. U.S. and Iraqi forces this week have been cordoning off sections of the city to root out insurgents and seize weapons. Several of the areas targeted recently are Sunni insurgent strongholds.
Also Thursday, the leader of one of Iraq's most revered Shiite mosques suspended Friday prayers to protest a raid conducted Wednesday.
U.S. military officials said in a statement that Iraqi forces raided the Barantha Mosque in north-central Baghdad because they suspected it was "used as a place to conduct sectarian violence against Iraqi civilians as well as a safe haven and weapons storage area for illegal militia groups." The officials said they confiscated three heavy machine guns and 80 assault rifles.
The mosque's imam, Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, a Shiite cleric and member of parliament who belongs to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, decried the raid during a telephone interview Thursday night. He said it was conducted solely by U.S. forces.
"They insulted the mosque and they did not inform the Iraqi government of the operation," he said. "We had an agreement with the government. They should tell us before doing such a thing."
Meanwhile, violence continued in Baghdad, where additional checkpoints have been set up recently and a nighttime curfew was extended by one hour.
A car bomb in Sadr City and other explosions killed at least seven people on Thursday, a police spokesman said.
The heavily fortified Green Zone was struck by rocket or mortar fire early Thursday, injuring two people, including an American citizen, said Lou Fintor, the U.S. Embassy spokesman. Fintor also said an Iraqi employee of the embassy was killed Wednesday in central Baghdad in what he described as a "random and senseless" act of violence.
Also Thursday, the U.S. military disclosed in a statement the death of an American soldier killed Wednesday in Anbar province in western Iraq while "conducting combat operations."
Staff writer Josh White in Washington and special correspondents Naseer Mehdawi, Naseer Nouri and Waleed Saffar in Baghdad contributed to this report.