An Al Qaeda leader, the Saudi Jar Allah aka Abu Yasir al-Saudi, was killed Wednesday, by a guided missile fired from a US Military helicopter. “According to the military, al-Saudi conducted numerous attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces, including a Jan. 28 bomb attack that killed the five U.S. soldiers.”

“Intelligence gathered in the Mosul area led the U.S. military to al-Saudi, who was in a car with Hamdan. A precision helicopter strike killed both and destroyed their vehicle. U.S. forces then confirmed the men’s identities,” the AP reports.

“Al-Saudi was the man who headed up the al-Qaida network in southeast Mosul” which is “an insurgent hotbed where U.S. forces wage daily battles against the group.”

It seems that, slowly but surely, the US is destroying Al Qaeda in Iraq, or at least severely weakening the terrorist organization. What one needs in such a war is good intelligence. In this case they had it. As Ed Morrissey points out at Hot Air, that’s a hopeful sign since it indicates that “US and Iraqi intelligence has improved in the last area where AQI still exercises any cohesiveness.”