US forces kill Al-Qaeda leader in Baghdad

BAGHDAD: US forces have killed a senior Al-Qaeda leader in west Baghdad and arrested three of his associates, military spokesman Brigadier General Kevin Bergner said on Thursday.   

"Yesterday, coalition forces killed a terrorist leader and detained three other suspected terrorists during an operation here in Baghdad to disrupt another network bombing there," he said.   

"Mohammed Mahmud 'Abd Kadhim Hussein al-Mashadani, also known as Abu Abdullah, was the terrorist killed during the operation," he said, showing a photograph of the suspect to reporters.   

Bergner described Kadhim Hussein as a "known al-Qaeda emir" and the leader of a car bomb network in the Hay al-Jamaa area in the west of the city, where local Sunni residents have recently turned against the militant group.   

A statement from US command said he "made continuous hostile attempts to evade the ground forces" and was shot by soldiers acting in self-defence. It was not clear whether the suspect was armed when he was shot.   

The death is the third reported killing of an Al-Qaeda street captain since last week, when some Sunni nationalist insurgents once opposed to the US military fell out with Al-Qaeda's Islamist extremists and changed sides.