AL-QAEDA in Iraq anointed a successor to its dead founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, yesterday and vowed to carry on his holy war against US-led forces.

In a statement posted on an Islamic website, the militant organisation named a little-known figure, Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, as its new leader, saying he was “a good brother, has a history in jihad and is knowledgeable. We ask God that he . . . continue what Sheikh Abu Musab began.”

Insurgent sources told The Times that al-Muhajir — a nom de guerre meaning “migrant” — was Egyptian and had fought in Afghanistan and against US forces during the battle of Fallujah in November 2004. He knows the Koran by heart and follows the teachings of Abdullah Azzam, the late mentor of Osama bin Laden.

“He has fought battles around Baghdad and was never wounded or came close to being caught . . . he’s one of the strongest members after al-Zarqawi, and that’s what won him the job,” one source said.

Another said: “He is one of those who is always wearing a suicide belt in case he is captured.”

A third insurgent source said: “He will have a good influence on Arab and Iraqi fighters . . . he led three times as many battles as al-Zarqawi because it was harder for al-Zarqawi to move around.”

President Bush said that al-Muhajir would have a bounty on his head, like his predecessor. There was a $25 million (£13.5 million) bounty on al-Zarqawi’s head. “I think the successor to al-Zarqawi is going to be on our list to bring to justice,” he said.

The announcement came as the US military claimed further successes against al-Qaeda in Iraq. It said that 32 insurgents had been killed and 178 detained in 140 military operations since al-Zarqawi’s death on Wednesday. President Bush sought to build on that momentum by summoning his top advisers to Camp David for a two-day session on future Iraq policy, which includes a video-conference with members of the new Iraqi Government.

Major General William Caldwell, the US military spokesman in Baghdad, disclosed that al-Zarqawi lived for 52 minutes after a US warplane dropped a pair of 500lb (227kg) bombs on his hideout in Hibhib, 30 miles (48km) northeast of Baghdad. Coalition forces arrived after 24 minutes, but could not keep him alive. A post-mortem examination showed that he died from massive internal injuries.

The blast also killed two males and three females, one a young girl. One of the men was Sheikh Abu Abdul Rahman, al-Zarqawi’s spiritual adviser, but the other has not yet been identified.

General Caldwell said that the US military and the Iraqi Government had yet to decide what to do with al-Zarqawi’s remains.

A senior Iraqi official told The Times that al-Zarqawi was betrayed by at least one trusted adviser. “We had a mole in his ranks for the past few weeks. He was an Iraqi mole. No doubt there were financial incentives,” he said.

Other breakthroughs included the arrests late last month in Diyala province of Hamza Khairi al-Ani, an al-Zarqawi confidant who was accused of multiple beheadings, and this month’s arrest in Baghdad of an al-Qaeda operative named al-Jahash. The confessions of Ziyad Khalaf Karbouli, another al-Qaeda member captured by Jordanian security agents near the Jordanian border, were also crucial.

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