Neo-Salafi Leaders Killed.

The Interior Ministry said its forces in Baghdad killed the No. 2 Qaeda figure in Iraq, naming him as Abu Ja'far al-Liby. The Defence Ministry said its troops arrested another man, Thamer Mohsen al-Jibouri, known as Abu Ayman, and said he was the fourth-ranked Qaeda leader.

Apart from the mounting toll of murders, some of them sectarian, some probably the work of kidnap gangs, Sept. 14 saw a number of bombings which have become routine.

Key to Washington's plan to withdraw from Iraq is establishing a government that would draw in minority Sunnis, who rose up after being driven from power when US troops toppled Saddam's Ba'thist dictatorship. Sunni leaders say the Shi'ite-led government has turned a blind eye to Shi'ite death squads and corrupt militia which control the police. They accuse Shi'ites and Kurds of trying to seize Iraq's oil wealth by splitting the country into regions.