Qaeda in Iraq struggling after leadership blow: U.S.

Washington, Agencies
U.S. and Iraqi forces have killed or captured 34 of the top 42 al Qaeda leaders in Iraq in the past 90 days, severing the group from al Qaeda's senior leadership and leaving it struggling to regroup, Army General Ray Odierno said on Friday.

Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said al Qaeda in Iraq was working to rebuild its leadership despite continuing military pressure and he cautioned against complacency.

"Over the last 90 days or so, we've either picked up or killed 34 out of the top 42 al Qaeda in Iraq leaders," Odierno told reporters during a Pentagon briefing.

"I will never take my eyes off of al Qaeda," he said. "We will always watch them."

The United States has handed over security control to Iraqi forces and is working to remove all combat troops by the end of August, an operation Odierno said was running a little ahead of schedule.

The plan is to have only about 50,000 military personnel in Iraq after September 1 for training and other non-combat roles. Odierno said the number of contractors would drop to about 65,000 by that time. There are currently 88,000 U.S. troops and about 90,000 contractors in Iraq, he said.

Odierno said the success against al Qaeda's leadership came after Iraqi and U.S. forces infiltrated a network in Mosul in the early part of the year.

They traced the leadership structure in an operation that ultimately led to a strike in mid-April that killed al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri and the head of a local affiliate, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State of Iraq.

"We made some significant inroads in Mosul, where their headquarters basically was. And we got inside of AQI. We picked up several of their leaders that did the financing, that did planning, that did recruiting," Odierno said.

"They are clearly now attempting to reorganize themselves," he added. "They're struggling a little bit ... They've lost connection with (al Qaeda senior leadership) in Pakistan and Afghanistan."

Odierno said Iraqi and U.S. security forces were continuing to pressure the group in an effort to keep it from re-establishing its leadership, "to make it more difficult for them to come back."

"They've named some names. But we're not even sure if there's actually people behind those names," he said.

"We do believe they will attempt to reconstitute. We think it will take them a bit longer, if they're able to. And we continue to put a lot of pressure on them, with the Iraqi security forces," Odierno said.