WASHINGTON – U.S. and Iraqi forces zapped Al Qaeda’s top two goons in a safehouse, the top American general in Iraq boasted Monday.

Army Gen. Raymond Odierno confirmed that Iraqi Security Forces “supported by U.S. forces” blew away Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Umar al-Baghdadi in an Al Qaeda in Iraq safehouse a few miles southwest of ex-dictator Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit.

“The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to Al Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency,” said Odierno, who commands all U.S. troops and is President Obama’s point man leading the American drawdown in Iraq.

One American soldier was killed when a helicopter crashed, the U.S. military said.

A military statement described al-Masri, “the Egyptian” also known as Abu Hamzah al-Muhajir, as AQI’s “military commander.” He was the terror group’s top leader and stepped in to reassert control on behalf of Osama Bin Laden after Jordanian thug Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was blown to bits by a U.S. airstrike in 2006.

Bin Laden’s deputy, Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri, had criticized the Sunni Muslim Zarqawi’s brutal tactics and his war on Iraq’s Shi’a Muslims.

Al-Masri joined Egyptian Islamic Jihad — which later merged with Al Qaeda — in 1982, and was a protege of its leader, Zawahiri.

Al-Baghdadi, the Iraqi “Prince of the Faithful” whose real name is Hamid Dawud Muhammad Khalil al Zawi, was the face of the insurgency as leader of the “Islamic State of Iraq.” Al-Baghdadi was long thought to be a fictitious figure – but al-Masri was always viewed as the real leader of the insurgency.

Odierno said American special operations forces had conducted a series of raids in the past week with help of intelligence officers and Iraqi troops, which ultimately led to the safehouse where both AQI leaders were hiding.

“There is still work to do but this is a significant step forward in ridding Iraq of terrorists,” Odierno said.

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