General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visited Baghdad on Tuesday to review the alliance's training mission for the Iraqi military. The unannounced visit was de Hoop Scheffer's second trip to Iraq. He was accompanied by the alliance's supreme commander for operations, U.S. Gen. James L. Jones. NATO has for more than a year been training a small group of senior Iraqi military officers and is planning to expand that mission to include a staff academy to train the higher ranks of the Iraq's armed forces. In Washington, U.S. defense officials said Monday that Abu Azzam, a leading deputy to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's leader in Iraq, was killed this weekend. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the information. The U.S. network CBS News, quoting Pentagon officials, reported that American forces killed Azzam in a house raid in Baghdad on Sunday.
