United States identifies new Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq as Egyptian Abu Ayyub Al-Masri
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The U.S. identified the new Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian with ties to Ayman al-Zawahiri. Zawahiri was the number two in command of Al-Qaeda. "We think that Abu Ayyub al-Masri is in fact, probably, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. They are probably one and the same" said Major General William Caldwell, spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq. Abu Ayyub al-Masri is thought to specialise in bomb making. The announcement came eight days after Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who had been identified
The U.S. identified the new Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian with ties to Ayman al-Zawahiri. Zawahiri was the number two in command of Al-Qaeda.
"We think that Abu Ayyub al-Masri is in fact, probably, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. They are probably one and the same" said Major General William Caldwell, spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq.
Abu Ayyub al-Masri is thought to specialise in bomb making.
The announcement came eight days after Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who had been identified by al-Qaeda as its leader in Iraq, had been "terminated" in a U.S. airstrike near Baqubah.
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Licensed archive reporting by Wikinews contributors. Text: CC BY 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/). Original source date retained. 411 has not independently verified this archive report.
Read the source: Wikinews ↗Source published 16 Jun 2006, 05:30 am IST
