U.S. says killed senior al Qaeda in Iraq figure

U.S. soldiers react after shots were fired at them by unidentified gunmen during a medical relief operation near Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, April 22, 2007.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Wednesday it had killed a senior al Qaeda in Iraq figure who it accused of leading a cell which sent children as young as 12 on suicide car bomb missions.

U.S. forces killed Muhammed Abdullah Abbas al-Issawi, described as a security emir for al Qaeda in Iraq in the western Anbar province, during a firefight with insurgents last Friday.

A U.S. military statement said Issawi, also known as Abu Abd al-Sattar, was linked to a recent surge in the use of poisonous chlorine gas in vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs), or car and truck bomb attacks.

"Intelligence reports also indicate that this VBIED cell used 12 to 13-year-old children as VBIED drivers," it said.

Major General Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations in the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, told reporters in Washington last month that insurgents in Iraq had used children in two separate suicide attacks in March.

Such reports could not be independently confirmed.

The military statement said Issawi, who had links to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq who was killed in a U.S. air strike in June 2006, was one of two insurgents killed in the firefight in western Iraq. A third was detained.

U.S. forces said suicide vests and weapons including hand grenades were also found.

Volatile Anbar is a stronghold of the Sunni Arab insurgency against U.S.-led and Iraqi forces. Militants from Sunni Arab al Qaeda and local Sunni tribes are also engaged in a bitter power struggle in Anbar.