Abu Qaswarah, Al-Qaeda's number two in Iraq, who was killed earlier this month by the US military, held Swedish citizenship, the Iraqi defence ministry said on Thursday.

"Abu Qaswarah is a Swede of Moroccan origin," ministry spokesman General Mohammed al-Askari told AFP.

The US military on Wednesday revealed that Abu Qaswarah had been killed on October 5 during a raid on a building in the main northern Iraqi city of Mosul where suspected Al-Qaeda militants were holed up.

Also on Wednesday, Sweden's security police, Saepo, said that a Swedish citizen of Moroccan descent had been killed in Iraq by US forces in northern Iraq at the beginning of October.

The Swedish news agency TT later said the man was Abu Qaswarah.

A statement on Wednesday by the US military said "Abu Qaswarah, also known as Abu Sara, was the Al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leader of northern Iraq."

It said Abu Qaswarah was a native of Morocco who had ties to Al-Qaeda in Iraq's founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US air strike in Iraq in June 2006.