Contrary to widespread media reports, BBC says May 9 that the man detained in Mosul is not in fact Abu Ayyub al-Masri, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. An earlier statement from the Iraqi defense ministry said that al-Masri had been captured. But an US military spokeswoman, Peggy Kageleiry, said confusion had arisen because a man with a similar name had been detained.
Al-Masri is believed to have helped Abu Musab al-Zarqawi form the first al-Qaeda cell in Baghdad. In April 2007, he was named “minister of war” in the 10-man cabinet of the “Islamic State of Iraq,” an umbrella organization of Sunni militant groups.
See our last posts on Iraq and al-Qaeda.
Could be a botched propaganda psy op
The last time the military dangled this guy at us, when they offed the magnified persona of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, it blew up in their faces when reports surfaced that he was in an Egyptian jail. Or dead.
It’s always dangerous when the propagandists play with their non existent creation “Al Qaeda in Iraq”. The Iraqis certainly know the truth that AQ is a mythical organization, and now it’s slowly seeping into the american consciousness that all our supposed enemies – Hezbollah, Iraqi resistance, Iran, all are fighting “Al Qaeda” too, reason being that it’s the CIA and a few hired thugs pretending to be a terror group. So it seemed someone wasn’t completely on the same page when he decided to drag this guy into the picture again, when it’s so demonstrably evident that facts speak otherwise.
Maybe it should be “Nolopensare”
Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a “non existent creation” (an oxymoron, by the way)? Tell that to the countless people they’ve killed. And who exactly are these Iraqis who “certainly know” this? The Iraqis I know—leaders of the civil resistance—certainly have no doubts that al-Qaeda in Iraq exists. They are forming militias to defend against it. And the reason Hezbollah and Iran are fighting al-Qaeda is not because it doesn’t exist (how the hell do you fight something that doesn’t exist anyway?) but because it is Sunni.
This is why the American left deserves its own marginalization. It is more interested endless, idle conspiracy-theorizing than in real analysis.
facts are tricky things
> The Iraqis certainly know the truth that AQ is a mythical organization, …
> … it’s the CIA and a few hired thugs pretending to be a terror group.
> … when it’s so demonstrably evident that facts speak otherwise.
A question for this website: Does the Iraqi Freedom Congress believe Al Qaeda is a mythical organization and a CIA front group? Any real evidence of an Al Qaeda CIA linkage after the 1980s? We do think it’s amusing that the US always gets ‘the number three guy’ in Iraq. The number three guy sure is a hot seat.
It’s also amusing to wonder where the poster is coming from. My guess is you’re a ‘truther’ and if so you guys make your ‘facts’ up as you go along without regard for scientific method or acceptable historical record. Is there any way we can work in Ron Paul, or did we miss the comic book convention?
“demonstrably evident” that al-Qaeda is real
The IFC is who I meant by the civil resistance (as the link indicates). They certainly do not think al-Qaeda is in any sense “mythical.” They know that it is all too real. And while there is doubtless some degree of al-Qaeda-CIA interpenetration, it is absurd to think al-Qaeda is a CIA front group. Even in the ’80s, it wasn’t that.