An Islamist lawyer and Egyptian security officials said for the first time Wednesday that they knew the real identity of the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, as skepticism grew over claims that he had been killed. Iraq's government and its tribal allies were scouring insurgent territory Wednesday for proof that Abu Ayyoub al-Masri - also known as Abu Hamza al-Mouhajer - had been killed in clashes between armed factions. An insurgent coalition insisted in a Web posting he was alive but offered no proof.

Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry's operations director, admitted Iraq has still not found any body or human remains to back up reports of Masri's death.

"So far we don't have it, but there are efforts under way to look for the body," said Khalaf, whose claim 24 hours earlier that Masri had been killed was treated with caution by the US.

In Cairo, Islamist lawyer Montasser al-Zayyat said Masri was in fact Abdel-Monem Izzeddine Ali Ismail, an Egyptian bomb expert and a former member of the Islamic Jihad group headed by Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahri.

The lawyer, himself a former member of the Egyptian militant Gamaa Islamiyya group, said that Masri has used several other pseudonyms in the past, including Abu Ayyoub, Abu Jihad, Youssef Haddad, and Labib Haddad.

Zayyat cited official papers and court documents which said that Ismail was born on December 21, 1969, in Nile Delta Province of Al-Sharqiyya and left school there before he joined the Islamic Jihad group.

In 1999, Ismail was sentenced for seven years in absentia for terrorist activities, Zayyat told The Associated Press.

Egyptian security officials confirmed Zayyat's identification of Masri, and said he has been investigated for links with Egyptian activists recruiting volunteers to fight in Iraq.

Masri, an Egyptian militant, took over leadership of Al-Qaeda and was endorsed by bin Laden after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed last June by a US air strike in Diyala Province.

A coalition of Sunni tribes that has vowed to defeat Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for Masri's alleged death, saying they tracked him to an area just north of Baghdad and killed him in a dawn ambush on Tuesday. http://www.dailystar.com.lb

"We have evidence and eyewitnesses and our contacts with the tribes there all confirm the killing," said Hamid al-Hayis, head of the Anbar Salvation Council, the armed wing of the Anbar Awakening, an alliance of tribal sheikhs.

Hayis said finding proof of the deaths of Masri and a small group of fellow Al-Qaeda militants was proving difficult, because the orchards and villages of the Nibae area near Taji are still in the hands of insurgents.

"The area is still under their control, early this morning we sent an armed group to scout the situation, but we haven't heard back from them yet," he told AFP in a telephone interview.

Citing information from informants, police Lieutenant Colonel Jabbar Rashid al-Dulaimi, a member of the Salvation Council, said Wednesday Masri had been killed along with two aides a day before when an explosives belt he was wearing detonated during fighting in the desert northwest of Baghdad. He identified the aides as Mullah Qahtan al-Marawi and Ismail al-Iraqi.

US authorities urged caution about the reports.

"We still don't know what the status is," US military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox said Wednesday, adding the US military was not involved in the operation that purportedly killed Masri.

"I haven't seen any reports that we have any bodies, or that we took custody, or that we had any participation there," he said at a news conference in Baghdad, adding there were no American forces in the area where it was said to have occurred.

Meanwhile, 16 more Iraqis were killed in attacks by suspected insurgents, including 11 who died when a bomb exploded on board a minibus passing through Mahmoudiyya, south of Baghdad, according to local mayor Muayad Fadhil.

US President George W. Bush is fighting political battles of his own on the domestic front, where there is mounting pressure for him to set a date to begin to bring US troops home.

On Tuesday, Bush vetoed a bill sent by the Democrat-controlled Congress which would have tied funding for the military to a pullout timetable.

Daily Star, Lebanon