A leading Al Qaeda fugitive who had taunted America after escaping from detention in Afghanistan was yesterday tracked down and killed in a dawn raid by British forces in Iraq.

Omar Al Faruq, who had been Al Qaeda’s chief operative in Southeast Asia for almost a decade and was implicated in the first Bali bombings, was surrounded by 250 troops as he hid out in a compound in Basra.

Weeks of planning preceded the order to move on the modest premises where he had taken refuge.

Two companies of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment were dispatched from the Shaiba Army base with instructions to take Faruq alive. The convoy of vehicles involved included Warrior armored cars and snatch Land Rovers.

A Ministry of Defense spokesman said Faruq had resisted attempts to arrest him and was killed in the ensuing gun battle. No British troops were killed or injured in the assault.

A Kuwaiti citizen, Faruq, was one of America’s most wanted men. He was arrested in Indonesia in 2002 and taken to American detention facilities at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.

But in July last year, he and three other men broke out of the high-security prison — an embarrassing security lapse only acknowledged six months later by the American military.

Faruq later appeared in a video taunting his former captors with details of his escape. Intelligence officials said he was believed to have left Pakistan for Iraq six months ago.

After establishing contacts with insurgents in the center of the county, he was sent to southern Iraq to mastermind attacks in the British area.

The Shiite-dominated southern provinces under British command have been relatively unscathed compared with parts of Iraq where Sunni Muslims reside. But Faruq’s presence in Basra triggered fears that Al Qaeda was establishing a new track in its Iraqi operations.