Al Qaeda leader in Iraq may not have been injured

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A new statement from an Iraqi army officer is casting doubt on reports that the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq was wounded in clashes.

On Thursday, an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesperson said Abu Ayyub al-Masri was wounded and his aide, identified as Abu Abdullah al-Majemaai, was killed.

However, the army officer said Friday that al-Majemaai had been detained on Feb. 9 and was in custody in a jail near Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad.

The officer said he could not comment on the location of al-Masri.

The claim seems to contradict those made by Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf on Thursday when he told Al Arabiya television that al-Masri was wounded and al-Majemaai was killed in a clash with Iraqi forces.

There was no report on the incident from U.S. authorities, and Khalaf declined to say how Iraqi forces knew al-Masri had been injured.

Al-Masri, an Egyptian, took over the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq after its charismatic leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a U.S. air strike last June in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.

The United States has put a US$5 million bounty on al-Masri's head.

The U.S. military has described him as a close Zarqawi associate who formed al Qaeda's first cell in Baghdad.

In October, false reports surfaced that al-Masri was killed in a raid, and the U.S. military performed DNA tests on a slain militant to see if he was the al Qaeda leader.

With files from The Associated Press