Whipping al-Qaeda into line in Iraq

Asia Times ^ | 6/12/06 | Sami Moubayed

[Coop]

...possible successors to the [Zarqawi]. One of them, Iraq-based Egyptian terrorist Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was also named by Major-General William Caldwell...

The other two are an Iraqi named Abu Aseel and a Syrian named Abu al-Ghadia.

Masri (reportedly... born in 1966) is believed to have entered Iraq to join Zarqawi in 2002 and founded a cell for al-Qaeda in Baghdad. ...Masri received his training at military camps in Afghanistan during the Taliban rule and met bin Laden at the Farouk Camp, where Masri was working as an instructor... is also reportedly close to Egyptian Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri...

Abu Aseel and Abu al-Ghadia

The real name of Abu Aseel has not been revealed, and sources in Islamic movements operating in Iraq confirm that he is a low-profile commander in al-Qaeda who avoids the limelight. [Coop: Zarqawi was the same way; ultimately, his ego prevailed and led to his downfall]

... Saudi Al-Arabiya channel said these sources predicted that Abu Maysara, the spokesman for al-Qaeda in Iraq, would announce Abu Aseel as successor to Zarqawi. The chances... were 80%.

Born in 1944 in the Sunni province of al-Anbar... Abu Aseel was transferred to military intelligence in the Iraqi army.

He served there during the heyday of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime, and abandoned the army to join Islamic fundamentalist parties in the 1990s. He had worked closely with Zarqawi since 2002.

...[b]orn in 1976, Sulayman Khalid Darwish (known as Abu al-Ghadia) is a Syrian...

...serves as a commander of al-Qaeda's intelligence branch and a member of the Mujahideen Shura Council...

He had been very close to Zarqawi since... 2003...

Ghadia... channeled $10,000-$12,000 every 20-25 days to Zarqawi in Iraq, through donors and sympathizers in the Arab and Islamic world...

[Coop]

Word on the street is that Al Qaeda in Iraq is supposedly going to tone it down a bit, moving away from Zarqawi's methods. However, the multiple beheading video would seem to refute that rumor.

On a side note, I saw an article earlier this morning where Jordan has arrested two of its Parliament members (IIRC) for attending Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's wake held by his family in Jordan.

[Coop]

Good info throughout entire article

[Coop]

Comments from Paul Bremer, in another article:

Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Paul Bremer said Zarqawi's death is symbolically important because al-Qaeda is a "cult-type" organization...

"Secondly, this will increase internal tensions inside al-Qaeda because it seems that one of his colleagues informed on him," said Bremer. "And terrorist groups are secretive to the point of paranoia and this sets off very big tensions inside the group ... and that's the third effect, when that happens the operational effectiveness of the group, at least in the short run, tends to be -- deteriorate."

...

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/breakingnews/article_21222696.shtml

[Straight Vermonter]

I think I will steal this for the round-up. Good find.

[Coop]

Oh, I suppose that's allowed. ;-)

[Peach]

For the media trying to pretend that Al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq or working with Saddam until we went to war, this is a list of the articles the mainstream media wrote in the 1990's about the world's alarm at the growing relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1327993/posts?page=212#212

[dalight]

Back in the day, there were 55 Cards. 9 or 10 of these Ba'ath party and Saddam loyalists are still unaccounted for. Presumably, among these names are the "real" insurgent leaders. There isn't much discussion about them, but its now time to clear them off the face of this moral coil if they are still in Iraq.

I looked everywhere for the current list and could only find it at Sic Semper Tyrannis 2006

6.Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri LTG
Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) Vice-Chairman / Northern Region Commander / Inner Circle/ Deputy Secretary General, Ba’th Party Regional Command / Deputy Commander, Armed Forces

At Large

7.Hani abd al-Latif al-Tilfah al-Tikriti COL
Director, Special Security Organization (SSO) And Responsible For Security And Investigations (MUDIRIYAH NUMBER TWO); Assistant To Qusay; Saddam's Nephew

At Large

14.Sayf al-Din Fulayyih Hasan Taha al-Rawi LTG
Chief Of Iraqi Republican Guard (RG)

At Large

15.Rafi abd al-Latif Tilfah al-Tikriti MG
Director, Directorate Of General Security (DGS)

At Large

16.Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti LTG
Director, Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS)

At Large

21.Rukan Razuki abd al-Ghafar Sulayman al-Nasiri Bg
Saddam’s Senior Bodyguard/head-Tribal Affairs/inner Circle

At Large

40.abd al-Baqi abd al-Karim al-Abdallah al-Sadun
Central Ba'ath Party Regional Command Chairman, Diyala Region

At Large

44.Yahya abdallah al-Ubaydi
Central Ba'ath Party Regional Chairman, Basrah Governorate

At Large

45.Nayif Shindakh Thamir Ghalib
Ba'ath Party Regional Chairman An-Najaf Governorate

At Large

49.Rashid Taan Kazim
Central Ba'ath Party Regional Chairman, Anbar Governorate

At Large

Its impossible to look at this list and not see that Saddam's henchmen are still possibly out there pulling the strings.

[Coop]

The Fox News article in Breaking this morning also tends to further damage the media's claim.

[Wiz]

ping

[jveritas]

If there are any people who know about the WMD beside Saddam of course, you can find them on the list you just showed and they are still at large unfortunately. From my reading of the Iraqi documents, I can tell you that the director of the Special Security Organization and the Director of the Intelligence Service are without any doubt aware of what happened to the WMD. In fact the Chemical Weapons were solely handled, hidden, and delivered to the battlefield by the Special Security Organization which was headed by Qusay Saddam Hussein.

In regards to Saddam Hussein, I am sure that our interrogation tactics are a joke for him and he basically gave us little to no information about any important subject, specially the WMD.

[dalight]

I wonder why the "search for WMD" became a low priority. The administration is dogged by this and it makes it so much harder for them to get anything done when the just accept this and move on.

I know they are serious about not blowing their creditability by jumping on some bogus "find." But at the same time, the evidence is stacking up that Saddam was really building a Terror network and really working on WMD with an eye toward having this capability to effect world events.

Now, if these guys know where the "bad" stuff is hidden and how to use it, is it possible that they can access this stuff and make it available to attack us now?

[jveritas]

I think the Iraq Survey Group who was tasked to find the WMD ended their job much earlier than they should and they prematurely concluded that there was no WMD in Iraq or no programs related to WND. If you read my translations of some Iraqi documents posted on my FR profile page you can see clear evidence of at least program related to WMD and you can also see without any doubt that Saddam was very strongly connected to terrorism.