Iraq's al Qaeda leader may be dead

Hello on this Tuesday, the first day of May 2007. I'm Kristin Volk with a UPI Headline update.

There are unconfirmed reports that al Qaeda's leader in Iraq has been killed. Local tribes claim Abu Ayyub al-Masri was slain in clashes with rival militant groups north of Baghdad. The Iraqi government says it cannot confirm the leader's death until it makes an identification of the body. Al-Masri succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as al Qaeda's leader in that country after he was killed in a U.S. airstrike in June.

President Bush is expected to veto the Iraq war-funding bill today that contains a troop withdrawal date. Yesterday, Bush said he wants to work with Democrats to create a bill
that doesn't set artificial timetables and gets money to the troops. The $124 billion spending bill passed last week funds military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but also calls for all U.S. forces to be out of Iraq by March 2008.

British government officials have announced that there will be no new investigation into the 2005 London terrorist bombings. There are suggestions the attack was paired with a previous terror plot. Some politicians have called for an independent inquiry into this link. But the British Home Secretary rejects those claims and says a public inquiry would divert the energies of police who are already stretched.

U.S. food agencies say tainted wheat gluten from China was used in manufacturing chicken feed sold in Indiana. All of the chickens that ate that food have since been processed and sold. The agencies say there's been no recall of poultry products processed
from these animals because there's no evidence of harm to humans associated with eating chicken that was fed the contaminated product.

For more on these stories and all of the day's news, check out upi.com. Thanks for watching!

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