Iraq: We'll get al Qaeda leader, dead or alive

Story Highlights

• NEW: 26 workers kidnapped from meat processing plant by gunmen
• Iraqi troops said to be closing in on al Qaeda in Iraq leader
• Official says troops will get Abu Ayyub al-Masri "as a corpse or tied up"
• Bombs across Iraq Sunday kill 4, wound nearly two dozen Iraqis

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's national security adviser Sunday issued a warning to the new leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, telling Abu Ayyub al-Masri that Iraqi troops are close to getting him "either as a corpse or tied up to face justice soon."

Muwaffak al-Rubaie showed reporters a video captured during a recent raid that he said showed al-Masri training followers to make car bombs.

He estimated that al-Masri has been involved in making more than 2,000 car bombs that have killed more than 6,000 Iraqis over the past two years. (Watch the video -- 40)

"We want to tell Abu Ayyub al-Masri that we are so close to you, much more closer than you thought," al-Rubaie said.

Al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, is an Egyptian who took over the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq in June after the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

On Thursday, an audiotape purportedly from al-Masri appeared on Islamic Web sites, saying he was launching a major military campaign and urging other Muslims in Iraq to join the fight. (Full story)

26 kidnapped from meat plant

At least 20 gunmen, several dressed like police commandos, kidnapped 26 workers from a Baghdad meat processing plant on Sunday, a Baghdad emergency police official told CNN.

The gunmen parked in front of the meat plant in the southwest Baghdad neighborhood of al-Amil around 4:30 p.m., seized the workers and put them in three trucks before driving away.

The U.S. military unveiled new Iraqi police uniforms in August to prevent insurgents from pretending to be police and carrying out kidnappings and attacks.

The uniforms are scheduled to be distributed in early October.

Some insurgent attacks are believed to have been carried out by militia members who have been integrated into Iraq's security forces, but have not changed their loyalties.

Bombs kill 4 in Iraq Sunday

A spate of bombings across Iraq Sunday wounded nearly two dozen people and killed four others.

While four of the five bombings took place in Baghdad, the deadliest blast took place in central Falluja, where a bomb exploded in a crowded area, killing three people and wounding two others, hospital officials said.

Falluja is about 40 miles west of Baghdad.

Around 2 a.m., a roadside bomb struck a British military convoy outside the southern city of Basra, seriously injuring two British soldiers, a British military spokesman told CNN.

In Baghdad, a car bomb, apparently targeting a U.S. military convoy, exploded, killing one civilian and wounding four others, Baghdad police said.

The U.S. convoy was not damaged, police said.

Over the next two hours, three roadside bombs exploded near Iraqi police patrols and a joint U.S.-Iraqi army patrol in the capital. The blasts injured 17 people.

Police found 12 unidentified bullet-riddled bodies, some with signs of torture, in Baghdad on Sunday, police said. Police believe the killings are the result of Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence.

Saturday night, gunmen shot and killed a Shiite sheik who headed the local office of the Shahid al-Mihrab organization, which is funded by Iraq's leading Shiite political party, a police official told CNN.

Sheik Numan al-Nassri was killed near his home in Diwaniya, a predominantly Shiite city about 110 miles (180 kilometers) south of Baghdad.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed Saturday by small arms fire in Iraq's volatile Anbar province, according to a military news release. The soldiers were assigned to the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary.)

The U.S. military also said Sunday that a U.S. soldier died from injuries suffered in a Humvee accident near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Saturday. The Task Force Lightning soldier was assigned to 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, based out of Fort Lewis, Washington, the military said.

With the deaths, 2,706 U.S. military personnel have been killed in the Iraq war. Seven American civilian contractors of the military also have died in the conflict.

CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq, Arwa Damon and Jomana Karadsheh contributed to this report.

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