WASHINGTON — American-led forces have killed one of the most important leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq, a Tunisian believed connected to the kidnapping and killings last summer of American soldiers, a top commander said today.

Brigadier General Joseph Anderson said the death of the suspected terrorist in an American airstrike Tuesday south of Baghdad, and recent similar operations against Al Qaeda, have left the organization in Iraq fractured.

“Abu Osama al-Tunisi was one of the most senior leaders … the emir of foreign terrorists in Iraq and part of the inner leadership circle,” General Anderson said.

Al-Tunisi was a leader in helping bring foreign terrorists into the country and his death “is a key loss” to Al Qaeda leadership there, General Anderson told a Pentagon news conference.

The U.S. Central Command said American aircraft dropped two 500-pound bombs on a terrorist safehouse, killing al-Tunisi and two others suspected terrorists who were meeting there.

Speaking by videoconfernece from Baghdad, General Anderson said that al-Tunisi operated in Yusufiyah, southwest of Baghdad, since the second battle of Fallujah in November ’04 and became the overall emir of Yusufiyah in the summer of ’06. He said his group was responsible for kidnapping American soldiers in June 2006.

General Anderson did not name the soldiers and Pentagon officials said they did not immediately know whom he was referring to. But three American soldiers were killed that month in an ambush-kidnapping that happened while they were guarding a bridge.