U.S. says two Turkish Qaeda operatives killed in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces killed two senior Turkish al Qaeda operatives in northern Iraq, including one who helped bring foreign fighters into the war-torn country, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.

The military said in a statement that Mehmet Yilmaz and Mehmet Resit Isik were killed on June 23 in a firefight with U.S. forces near Hawija, south of the city of Kirkuk.

U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said the men were Turks.

Military officials say foreign militants, mainly from Arab countries, are the brains behind al Qaeda in Iraq.

Tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops are engaged in an offensive against al Qaeda, partly in an attempt to take down the Sunni Islamist group's car bomb networks.

The statement said Yilmaz, also known as Khalid al-Turki, was a senior leader in al-Qaeda who operated a cell that brought foreign fighters into Iraq. Isik was a close associate of Yilmaz and other senior al Qaeda leaders, the statement said, adding the bodies of both men had been positively identified.

"These are two very dangerous, very significant international terrorists that are no longer part of the al Qaeda network," Garver said.

The statement said Yilmaz had led a group of Turks to Afghanistan in 2001 to fight foreign troops in the wake of the invasion to oust the Taliban.

Intelligence reports indicated Yilmaz was wounded in Afghanistan and went to Pakistan for treatment, where he was captured by the government in 2004 and deported to Turkey.

He was released in late 2005, eventually moving his operations to Iraq, the statement said. Turkish authorities were investigating several attacks that may have involved Yilmaz, the statement said, without giving details.

U.S. officials accuse al Qaeda of trying to tip Iraq into full-scale sectarian civil war between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.