Awaiting Confirmation on Masri

US and Iraqi forces are still in the process of securing the location where reports indicated al Masri was killed.

Information on the status of Abu Ayyub al Masri, al Qaeda in Iraq's commander and the Minister of Defense for al Qaeda's Islamic State in Iraq, has remained essentially static since yesterday afternoon. Multinational Forces Iraq have taken a wait-and-see approach, and the Iraqi government has refused to confirm his death. What is clear is that a battle between forces of the Anbar Salvation Council and al Qaeda in Iraq occurred in the town of al-Nibayi, near Taji in Salahadin province, al Qaeda took casualties and U.S. and Iraq security forces, along with the tribal fighters of the Anbar Salvation Council are securing the scene of the fight in an attempt to find al Masri's body.

The Anbar Salvation Council is openly taking credit for the strike in Salahadin. "Eyewitnesses confirmed his death and their corpses are still at the scene," said Sheikh Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi, the leader of the Anbar Salvation Council. "We have evidence and eyewitnesses and our contacts with the tribes there all confirm the killing," said Hamid al-Hayis, another leader of the Anbar Salvation Council.

This article provides interesting details of what may have happened based on an anonymous source, which means take it with a grain of salt:

Meanwhile, a police official in Anbar province said al-Masri died when his explosives belt detonated during fighting but security forces could not retrieve the body because it was in a part of the desert controlled by the terror group.

U.S. authorities urged caution about the reports, saying they had not been confirmed and warning that even if the claim were true, the death of the shadowy Egyptian militant likely would not spell the end of the terror movement in Iraq.

'We still don't know what the status is,' U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Mark Fox said Wednesday, adding the U.S. military was not involved in the operation that purportedly killed al-Masri.

The US and Iraqis are right to take a cautious approach to reports of al Masri's death. We might get a better sense of the situation once the area is secured, though if al Qaeda forces spirited away the remains, it would be impossible to determine whether al Masri was killed.