Al-Qaida denies killed member to be ranking; announcement is political
Iraq, Military, 9/28/2005

The Iraqi national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubei said that the second ranking man in al-Qaida organization in Iraq, Abu Azzam, was killed on Monday in a joint American- Iraqi operation in Baghdad.

The official spokesman for the interim Iraqi government Leith Kebbeh confirmed the killing of Abu Azzam. In a press conference, Kebbeh said that a joint force broke into a apartment in the southeast of Baghdad and clashed with two men inside it and killed one and arrested the other.

Kebbeh said that investigation showed that the killed man is Abdullah Najm al- Jawari, known as Abu Azzam, and he is of the Iraqi nationality, and is considered the official responsible for al-Qaida activities in Baghdad.

The American army confirmed this information and said that Abu Azzam was killed by bullets while he was hiding in a residential building in Baghdad.

The New York Times said in a report that the agents of the CIA took part in this operation which resulted in killing Abu Azzam, but the spokesman for the US army did not confirm this.

A statement by al-Qaida organization in Iraq denied that the man called Abu Azzam, the American and Iraqi forces announced his killing to be the second ranking man in the group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and described him as just a "soldier of al-Qaida and one of the leaders of the groups working in Baghdad."

The statement admitted in one of the Islamic sites that Abu Azzam, his real name is Abdullah Najm al-Jawari, was besieged in Baghdad at the hands of what it called the crusaders at the support of helicopters, and that clashes took place with him but did not confirm his killing.

He described the announcement made on Abu Azzam's killing as the last series in "desperate statements that are no longer useful to raise the morale of their soldiers, or getting out of the swamp of frustration in which they drown in at the attacks of the Mujahideen (fighters)."

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