Tag Archives: Al Qaeda in Iraq

Al Qaeda in Iraq has confirmed that its top two leaders were killed during an April 18 raid by Iraqi and US forces. The sharia minister for the Islamic State of Iraq confirmed their deaths in a statement released over the Internet.

Iraqi and US forces killed al Qaeda in Iraq’s top military commander during a raid on the outskirts of Mosul. Hazim Ilyas Abdallah al Khafaji “was the guy in charge of operations from Tikrit all the way up to Mosul out to the Syrian border,” General Ray Odierno said.

Iraqi and US troops killed Abu Ayyub al Masri and Abu Omar al Baghdadi, al Qaeda in Iraq’s top two leaders, during raids in the Thar Thar region. Also killed were a top aide to al Masri and Baghdadi’s son. Sixteen associates were detained.

Iraqi officials said security forces averted a plot by al Qaeda in Iraq to fly airplanes into buildings, possibly including the Shia Imam Ali shrine in Najaf. Two men, a pilot and an airport worker, were arrested, while the Najaf airport remains closed since April 8.

The Islamic State of Iraq, al Qaeda’s front group, said it carried out the April 4 suicide attacks that targeted foreign embassies and missions in Baghdad. The Islamic State of Iraq denied any involvement in the April 7 bombing that targeted residential buildings in largely Shia neighborhoods in Baghdad.

The US Treasury designated Muthanna Harith al Dari as a terrorist for his support of al Qaeda in Iraq. Al Dari “provides financial, material, or technological support and financial or other services to or in support of AQI including operational guidance for attacks against Iraqi Forces and Coalition Forces in Iraq.”

The Islamic State of Iraq, al Qaeda’s front group, declared a curfew and threatened to attack civilians who voted in the March 7 parliamentary election. Anyone who violated the curfew would “expose himself to the anger of Allah and then to all kinds of weapons of the mujahedeen,” the terror group said in a statement […]

Abu Omar al Baghdadi, the leader of al Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq, threatened to conduct attacks to prevent Iraqis from voting in the upcoming parliamentary election. “We decided to prevent the elections by all possible and legitimate means, primarily, the military means,” Baghdadi said in a statement released on the Internet.

US and Iraqi forces killed Abu Khalaf during a raid in Mosul on Jan. 22. Khalaf was al Qaeda in Iraq’s top facilitator, who was responsible for recruiting suicide bombers and foreign fighters and helping them enter Iraq. He is thought to have entered Iraq last fall to direct operations.

The Islamic State of Iraq, al Qaeda’s front organization in Iraq, took credit for the Jan. 25 suicide attacks that targeted three hotels in central Baghdad. The “fourth thunderous wave,” a reference to the fourth mass-casualty suicide strike since August 2009, was designed to demonstrate that foreigners are not safe in Baghdad.

The Islamic State of Iraq, al Qaeda’s front group, claimed responsibility for the Dec. 30, 2009, suicide attack in Ramadi that killed a member of the Anbar provincial council and 23 others. The attack was “a divine blow” against “the criminal security apparatus,” the terror group said in a statement released on the Internet.