US,Iraqi forces kill two top Qaeda leaders in rocket attack

US and Iraqi forces killed the two top al-Qaeda figures in the country in a nighttime rocket attack on a safe house near Saddam Husseins hometown...

US and Iraqi forces killed the two top al-Qaeda figures in the country in a nighttime rocket attack on a safe house near Saddam Husseins hometown of Tikrit,a joint operation the US called a significant blow to the insurgency and a sign Iraqi security forces are strengthening.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the killings of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri at a news conference in Baghdad and showed reporters photographs of their bloody corpses. The deaths were later confirmed by the US military.

The killings may boost Malikis stature as he tries to ensure his reappointment as PM following a March 7 general election that produced no outright winner.

Maliki said ground forces surrounded a house and used rockets to kill the two,who were hiding inside. The US military said an American helicopter crashed during the assault,killing one US soldier.

In Washington,US Vice-President Joe Biden called the killing of the two a potentially devastating blow to al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Maliki described the deaths as a quality blow breaking the back of al-Qaeda.

Al-Masri was the shadowy national leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq,which he took over after its Jordanian-born founder,Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,was killed in a June 2006 US airstrike. Al-Masris real name was Abdul-Monim al-Badawi,according to a 2009 al-Qaeda statement describing the makeup of a new War Cabinet.

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Al-Qaeda in Iraq emerged after al-Zarqawi pledged his allegiance to Osama bin Laden in October 2004. It has survived a series of setbacks in recent years.