IRAQ: The spiritual mentor of al-Qaeda ally, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Muslim cleric who justified Zarqawi's beheading of hostages in Iraq, has been killed in a US air strike, associates and relatives said yesterday.
They said Omar Youssef Jumah, known as Abu Annas al-Shami, whose religious edicts or fatwas were heeded by his fellow Jordanian, died on Friday while hiding to the west of Baghdad. The report could not be independently confirmed.
Shami called himself grand mufti, or spiritual guide, of Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group, which says it has beheaded two Americans this week and is threatening to kill a Briton.
His wife in the Jordanian capital Amman was contacted on Sunday by Iraqi friends to tell them of Shami's death in an overnight air raid, a family member said.
Shami and several comrades were being sheltered by local people from the Zouba tribe, from which anti-American insurgents draw support, close to Baghdad's main prison at Abu Ghraib.
US aircraft have bombed buildings from Baghdad to Falluja in recent weeks in strikes aimed at Zarqawi's group, which has claimed responsibility for some of the worst violence in Iraq. Islamist sources in Jordan said the Sunni cleric went to Iraq after last year's US invasion. - (Reuters)