Baghdad, May 9 : Iraqi police has arrested the fugitive Abu Hamza al-Muhajir who called himself the head of al-Qaeda.

The US State Department had announced five million dollars reward for information leading to his arrest.

Iraqi Major General Abdul Karim Khalaf said that the detained man claimed he was Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, but we are investigating to verify his identity.

He was arrested in Wad al-Hajar region of Nineveh during a raid, Khalaf said.

Muhajir, whose real name according to the US military is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, is an Egyptian national who was made the chief of the jihadist group in Iraq after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a US air strike in June 2006.

The al-Qaeda kingpin is a car bomb expert, and the details about his real identity have been a source of debate among Iraqi and US security officials.