Iraqi and US officials denied reports Thursday that the new chief of the Al Qaeda network in Iraq, Abu Ayyub Al Masri, had been killed by US troops.
Asked whether a report on the Al Arabiya satellite television that Masri had been killed by US troops was true, US spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said: "No".
A spokesman for the Iraqi defense ministry, Mohammed Askari, said the body of a dead militant was being examined but that "it's most probably not him."
Iraqi state television also dismissed the Al Arabiya report, which said that US forces had killed Masri - also known as Abu Hamza Al Muhajer - and three other militants in a raid Wednesday in Haditha, near the capital Baghdad.
The Dubai-based TV channel quoted security sources Thursday as saying that US forces killed Masri and three other militants in a raid Wednesday in Haditha, near the capital Baghdad.
An Iraqi government official had said on Sunday that Masri's "days are numbered" after showing the first video images of the wanted man, who replaced slain former Qaeda leader Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi.
On Friday the new Al Qaeda leader, also known as Abu Hamza Al Muhajer, had also broadcast an Internet audio message threatening a renewed offensive and a campaign to kidnap foreigners.
Masri's identity was first revealed by the US military in July, after the June killing of his predecessor and Al Qaeda in Iraq founder Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born Sunni Muslim extremist.
Masri was described as an Egyptian émigré with an extensive knowledge of explosives. The footage showed a bespectacled man with an Egyptian accent explaining how to a rig a car with bombs.
"I can say we are very close to Abu Ayyub Al Masri and we say to him your days are numbered," Iraqi National Security Advisor Muwaffaq Al Rubaie told a news conference on Sunday. "Either your dead body or manacled hands will be brought before justice."
Rubaie had said the purpose of showing the video was to speed his capture and show Iraqis the "foreign" face of violence in the country.
US, Iraq deny reports Al Qaeda chief killed
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