Capturing or killing Osama America's top priority, says White House

WASHINGTON: Al-Qaida 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-Qaida, we wouldn't be discussing today an important and debilitating step that helps further cripple al-Qaida 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-Qaida," 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-Qaida 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-Qaida in Iraq leader.