Notice the question mark in the title (which I'll note has been missing from some of the news coverage of this breaking story). From CNN:
Iraq (CNN) -- Unconfirmed reports that al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri has been killed come from local tribes and not Iraq's intelligence services or military, an Iraqi government spokesman said Tuesday. [...]
"Iraqi security forces do not have the body," al-Dabbagh said on Iraqi state TV. "Iraqi security forces and Multi-National Forces are trying to retrieve the body for visual identification and DNA tests."
The reports of al-Masri's death emerged after a confrontation Tuesday between Sunni tribes and al Qaeda in Iraq at a bridge in an area under Sunni tribal control, Dabbagh said.
Earlier Tuesday, an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman said "very strong intelligence" indicated al-Masri was killed in fighting between rival militant groups north of Baghdad. [...]
The U.S. military and U.S. Embassy in Baghdad had no information on the reports.
This isn't the first time al-Masri was reportedly "killed" in 2006, and the U.S. has been rightly skeptical of such claims in the past. The U.S. government, accordingly, is being very cautious with its statements on the matter.
It will take some sorting out to determine if today's news is corroborated.
And if it is? Good news, indeed, but can we expect things to change in Iraq? Remember when the last leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq was killed? Really killed, not maybe killed. We were treated to gold-framed pictures of a dead Zarqawi. President Bush touted the killing as a "severe blow" to terrorism.
Since that statement, 877 troops have been killed in Iraq. 3,351 have been killed in total thus far.
And as for terrorism? A report released this week shows a startling 25% increase in global terrorism, with 40% of those attacks taking place in Iraq:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Iraq's sectarian warfare fueled a sharp increase in global terrorism in 2006, the U.S. State Department reported Monday.
The total number of terrorist attacks was up more than 25 percent from the previous year, according to the State Department's annual report on global terrorism.
Incidents in Iraq accounted for nearly half of the 14,000 attacks and about two-thirds of the more than 20,000 fatalities worldwide. The number of deaths blamed on attacks increased by about 40 percent.
A "severe" blow, indeed.
Update: And now we have this "breaking news" banner from ABCNews.com:
SOURCES TELL ABC NEWS THAT REPORTS OF THE DEATH OF HAMZA AL MASRI, LEADER OF AL QAEDA IN IRAQ, ARE UNCONFIRMED AND PART OF A MISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN. DEVELOPING...