LONDON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces said they shot dead a leader of al Qaeda in Iraq on Friday who was the mastermind behind a series of deadly recent bombings in Baghdad. A spokesman for coalition forces said Mahir Ahmad Mahmud Judu' al-Zubaydi, also known as Abu Assad or Abu Rami, had been al Qaeda in Iraq's "emir" of the Rusafa neighbourhood of the capital. Troops surrounded a building in the Adhamiya area of Baghdad after intelligence reports that Abu Rami was inside, and called on the occupants to surrender, the spokesman said. Coalition forces were shot at from the building and returned fire, killing Abu Rami and a female, spokesman Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll said in a statement. A cell in Abu Rami's network was believed to be responsible for attacks on Thursday which killed eight people and wounded more than 30, the statement said. Suicide bombers struck Shi'ite worshippers as they gathered for prayers at two mosques in Baghdad to celebrate the Muslim Eid al-Fitr feast on Thursday, killing a total of 16 people and wounding nearly 60, officials said. Abu Rami was also suspected of car bombings and mortar attacks in 2006 and 2007, one of which killed more than 200 people, the coalition forces statement said. He was believed to be a planner of kidnappings and executions and a 2006 video recording showed him shooting a Russian diplomat, it added. Abu Rami joined al Qaeda in Iraq from the Ansar al-Islam group in 2004, the statement said. "His removal from the AQI (al Qaeda in Iraq) network will send shockwaves through Baghdad's terrorist bombing networks," Driscoll said. "Its ability to conduct grisly attacks against Iraqi civilians and Coalition and Iraqi forces has been severely crippled by this precision operation." Violence overall in Iraq is at four-year lows and al Qaeda militants no longer control large numbers of villages and city districts as they did until 2007. (Writing by Andrew Roche)
Demonstrators display anti-U.S. military placards during a protest in Kufa, 120 km (75 miles) south of Baghdad September 26, 2008. Placards read, "Iraq will not become a U.S. colony". REUTERS/Ali Abu ...
