Capturing or killing Osama US` top priority: White House

Al-Qaeda terror group`s elusive chief Osama bin Laden remains a top priority for the US and it is going all out to either capture or eliminate the world`s most wanted terrorist, the White House has said.

Washington: Al-Qaeda terror group`s
elusive chief Osama bin Laden remains a top priority for the
US and it is going all out to either capture or eliminate the
world`s most wanted terrorist, the White House has said.

Noting that America has been successful in inflicting
damage to the terror group by arresting several of its top
leaders, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said,
"Bringing him (Laden) to justice, capturing or killing him
obviously remains a priority."
"I think, if you were to only focus on one and not on,
quite frankly, a broad array of important players in al-Qaeda,
we wouldn`t be discussing today an important and debilitating
step that helps further cripple al-Qaeda in Iraq," he said.

The official said this while referring to the killing
of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayub al-Masri, who had direct
links with bin Laden, in a shootout 10 kilometres southwest of
Tikrit, the home city of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, in
Iraq.

"If you examine the tempo with which this
administration has prosecuted the war on terror in rooting out
and helping to, as we did in Iraq, root out high-value
targets, we`ve done so in a way I think that by all accounts
has greatly damaged the capabilities of al-Qaeda," Gibbs said.
"But we know that as long as there are those members
that seek to do this country harm, the President will remain
vigilant in pursuing those targets," he asserted.

American forces have always said Masri -- a veteran
Egyptian militant named Al-Qaeda chief in June 2006 following
the death of his better-known Jordanian predecessor Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi in a US air raid -- was the real al-Qaeda in Iraq
leader.

PTI

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