An al-Qaeda leader suspected of masterminding one of Baghdad's deadliest attacks, as well as recent bombings and the videotaped execution of a Russian official in 2006, has been killed, according to the US military.
American troops also killed the man's wife in a gunfight as they tried to capture him in the northern neighbourhood of Azamiyah, the military said.
Mahir Ahmad Mahmud al-Zubaydi, also known as Abu Assad or Abu Rami, allegedly directed the insurgent cell believed responsible for nearly simultaneous car bomb and suicide attacks last Thursday, said a US statement.
Iraqi police and hospital officials have said some two dozen people were killed in Thursday's attacks targeting two Shia mosques in Baghdad. The victims were attending prayers marking Eid, the religious holiday at the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.
Those attacks and others have raised fears that al-Qaeda in Iraq is trying to provoke Sunni-Shia reprisal killings as US-led forces begin to be reduced.
