BAGHDAD, March 10 (Reuters) - A top leader of an al Qaeda linked group arrested on Friday and initially thought to be Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was not in fact the head of the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq, Iraqi officials said.

Baghdadi's Islamic State of Iraq, a body set up by al Qaeda's Iraq wing and some other Sunni militant groups in October, has claimed responsibility for a string of major attacks.

"We captured a figure who was a senior al Qaeda member and we suspected that he was Abu Omar al-Baghdadi but after initial investigations it was proven it was not Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. But he was a senior al Qaeda leader," said Iraqi military spokesman Qassim Moussawi.

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