BAGHDAD, 3 June 2007 — Unidentified gunmen shot dead a local Al-Qaeda leader in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah yesterday, police said, as fighting between rival Sunni factions undermined the insurgency.
The apparent assassination of the militant kingpin came as the US military announced that Marines and Iraqi security forces had killed seven Al-Qaeda fighters in a gunbattle during an assault which led to a truck bomb factory being destroyed.
Both incidents appeared to be linked to increased cooperation between Sunni factions, once sympathetic to the Iraqi resistance, and the US military, which is encouraging nationalist factions to fight Al-Qaeda.
Col. Tareq Al-Dulaimi, a senior police intelligence officer with close ties to Anbar Province’s pro-US tribal coalition, confirmed reports that Muwaffaq Al-Jugheifi had been killed but did not identify the attackers.
Dulaimi described the slain Al-Qaeda leader as an Iraqi from Fallujah. A police captain, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “Militants riding in two civilian cars opened fire on Al-Jugheifi and his group yesterday morning as they left the Abu Ayyub Al-Ansari mosque.”
“I can confirm that we know of Muwaffaq, he is known to be behind numerous crimes, including kidnapping,” Maj. Jeff Pool, spokesman for Fallujah’s US Marines, said without confirming his death. Fallujah is currently at the center of a large-scale security operation in which Iraqi police and tribal levies, backed by US forces, are attempting to drive Al-Qaeda’s Islamist militants out of the town.
Yesterday’s killing came after the Anbar Salvation Council, the armed wing of the province’s tribal coalition, announced that it was sending plainclothes “secret police” to Baghdad to kill Al-Qaeda leaders.
The council, whose fighters include thousands of former insurgents, has fallen out with Al-Qaeda and thrown its lot in with US forces. It has sent gunmen to join the Iraqi police and pro-US tribal levies.
Earlier this week, fighting erupted in west Baghdad between nationalist Sunni militants and Al-Qaeda, triggering fierce street battles.
Also yesterday, Iraqi police and soldiers and US Marines killed seven Al-Qaeda militants in the attack on a Fallujah truck bomb factory.
Acting on a tip from a local source, the joint assault squad stormed the workshop shortly after sunrise, triggering a two hour gunbattle with a force of militants, some of them wearing suicide bomb vests.
One of the bomb vests exploded when Marines from the 6th Marine Regiment opened fire on five suspected Al-Qaeda members fleeing the scene, a statement from the US military in Fallujah said.
In all, seven suspects were killed and eight were captured. There were no Iraqi or coalition casualties, and two trucks rigged as suicide bombs were destroyed in controlled explosions, the statement added.
Meanwhile, Pool reported another operation in the northeast of the lawless city, where Marines and Iraqi security forces closed off a district, searched for militants and recruited local men into another levy.
“The operation cleared the section of the city of known insurgents and the combined force installed barriers to limit access,” he said.
“Police recruited from among the community a neighborhood watch to screen those wanting to enter.” Three children were also reported killed on Friday, when a US tank opened fire on men believed to be installing a roadside bomb on a highway just south of the city. The men escaped and three children were later found dead at the scene.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, the western neighborhood of Amiriyah was relatively quiet for a second day following two days of fierce clashes between Al-Qaeda, rival nationalist insurgent groups, tribal forces, and US forces.
Residents described Wednesday and Thursday’s fighting as an effort to rid the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of some unwelcome Al-Qaeda fighters.
US forces have recently confirmed that they are actively seeking to work with what they dub “reconcilable” nationalist insurgent movements, which are mostly led by ex-military officers and Baathists.
In a sign of alarm at this development, Al-Qaeda issued an Internet statement calling on insurgent groups to cease their internecine clashes and decreed that “participation in sedition was illegal.”
North of the capital, police accused Al-Qaeda of blowing up a key highway bridge on the road to the northern oil hub of Kirkuk.
“Gunmen bombed this strategic and important bridge and caused a great deal of damage, cutting the road between Kirkuk and Baghdad,” said Col. Abbas Mohammed Amin, chief of police in Tuz Khurmatu.
The 500-meter (yards) Sarha bridge crosses the Al-Adhaim River, a seasonal waterway that flows out of the remote Himreen hills, an insurgent hotbed around 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Baghdad.
