Apologies for the early OT (does it count on an Onion thread?):

Third high-ranking al-Qaeda in Iraq leader killed

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi and U.S. troops killed a regional leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq in an early morning raid Tuesday, as security forces continue to put pressure on the terrorist organization following the reported deaths of its two top-ranking figures over the weekend, officials said.

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri were killed in a joint operation Sunday in what Vice President Joe Biden called a “potentially devastating blow” to al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The intelligence that led to the elusive leaders’ desert safehouse about six miles southwest of Tikrit came from the same source — a senior al-Qaeda operative captured last month — that produced the information leading to Tuesday’s raid, according to a senior Iraqi military intelligence officer who supervised both operations.