A Moroccan fighter who rose to become Al-Qaeda's number two in Iraq has been killed in a US and Iraqi army raid in Mosul, the US army claimed in a statement today.

The body of Abu Qaswarah has apparently only now been identified after an explosion and firefight on October 5, when coalition forces attacked a building in the city which is considered Al-Qaeda's last urban stronghold in the north.

Four other insurgents and three women and three children were reported to have died in the same incident.

The army said that the extremist had links to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian founder of Al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed in a US airstrike in June 2006.

“Abu Qaswarah, also known as Abu Sara, was the Al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leader of northern Iraq,” a military statement said.

“He was responsible for organising and leading Al-Qaeda in Iraq efforts in northern Iraq, including operations against Iraqi and coalition targets in Mosul."

He reportedly trained with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and was said to be in contact with insurgent leaders in Pakistan. Since 2007 he had allegedly been in charge of directing the movement of foreign terrorists into northern Iraq.

The army statement went on to describe the raid. “As coalition forces entered the building housing the terrorist, they began receiving small-arms fire. Coalition forces returned fire once engaged,” it said.

“A terrorist detonated a suicide vest shortly thereafter in the house ... Five terrorists along with three women and three children were killed."

It is the second claim this month of US success against Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Last Friday US forces in Baghdad were reported to have killed Mahir Ahmad Mahmud al-Zubaydi, also known as Abu Assad or Abu Rami, a suspected Al-Qaeda militant believed to have planned some of the deadliest bombings in the Iraqi capital and to have killed a group of Russian diplomats in 2006.

The military said Abu Rami’s group had been responsible for suicide bombings in Baghdad the previous day.

Earlier today the Iraqi army unearthed a mass grave believed to contain the bodies of 22 shepherds kidnapped in April last year by Al-Qaeda gunmen dressed in police uniforms near the Shia holy city of Karbala, in southern Iraq.

The kidnappers converged on the shepherds in an isolated desert area and snatched their sheep, trucks, herds and weapons. The victims were forced into vehicles and driven towards the neighbouring Sunni province of Al-Anbar, then a hotbed of Al-Qaeda and Sunni insurgents, and never heard from again.

An untold numbers of Iraqis have been kidnapped since the start of the US-led war in 2003 that triggered a major sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims that continues to simmer.

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