The U.S. military today released new information about Abu Musab Zarqawi’s successor, quickly elevating the stature of the Egyptian militant whom is said in Internet postings to be the new head of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The U.S. military also announced today that the number of American military deaths in Iraq has reached 2,500, though the 24 killed so far this month has been relatively low. At a press briefing in the Iraqi capital, the U.S. military showed reporters a previously classified picture of the Egyptian-born militant man who goes by the name Abu Ayyub Masri or Sheik Abu Hamza Muhajer, wearing traditional Arab headdress.

Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, spokesman for U.S.-led forces in Iraq said U.S. officials debated for days before deciding to release the photo and a brief biographical sketch of the alleged insurgent leader. They worried that bolstering his media profile would play into his hands. “Our intention is not to glorify him,” Caldwell said. But by making Masri or Muhajer, whose two names mean “Egyptian” and “immigrant” in Arabic, the U.S. continues painting Iraq’s Sunni Arab rebellion as driven by outsiders, even though foreign fighters make up a small portion of guerrillas fighting Americans and the Iraqi government.Masri began his journey in Islamist circles in 1982 as a disciple of Ayman Zawahiri, the Egyptian physician now a deputy to Osama bin Laden, said Caldwell, citing information held by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s spy agency. Masri went to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in 1999, where he trained at Bin Laden’s Farouk camp, and met Zarqawi. After the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Masri made his way to Iraq, where he reunited with Zarqawi and became his trusted deputy. During the first year of the insurgency, Masri helped draw other insurgent groups into Al Qaeda’s fold and worked with Zarqawi’s deputies in Fallouja, providing suicide bombers and car bombs to other parts of the country, the military said. After U.S. Marines overran Fallouja in November 2004, Masri became Al Qaeda emir, or prince, of southern Iraq. In addition to depicting the insurgents in a negative light, U.S. and Iraqi officials have tried to get Iraqis to lay down their weapons by periodically touting reconciliation plans with some insurgents. Al-Masri was an Afghanistan-trained explosives expert who had mainly been responsible for facilitating the movement of foreign fighters from Syria into Baghdad.

 via: losangelestimes

Tags: Iraq, Al-Qaeda, United states

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