Leader of al-Qaida in Iraq arrested
Iraqi defense ministry says Abu Ayyub al-Masri is captured in Mosul


BREAKING NEWS
NBC News and news services
updated 1 hour, 10 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was arrested Thursday in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi defense officials said.

Defense Ministry Spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said the arrest of al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, was confirmed to him by the Iraqi commander of the province. There was no immediate confirmation or comment from U.S. forces on the arrest.

An Interior Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, said that Mosul police "arrested one of al-Qaida's leaders at midnight and during the primary investigations he admitted that he is Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir."

News of the arrest was also reported by Iraqi state television and Arab satellite TV stations.

The state channel, Iraqiya, said that Minister of Interior Jawad al-Bolani would reward Mosul police for the capture.

The U.S. government had posted a $5 million reward for his capture.

Khalaf told the station by phone that a source close to the al-Qaida leader informed Mosul police that al-Masri would be at a house in the city's Wadi Hajar area at midnight Wednesday.

"The police raided this house and arrested him. During the primary investigation, he confessed that he is Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir, the leader of Al-Qaida in Iraq. Now a broader investigation of him is being conducted," he said to Iraqiya.

Major blow to al-Qaida in Iraq
If confirmed, the arrest would represent a major blow to al-Qaida in Iraq, which has been on the run for the past year following a shift in alliances by Sunni tribesmen in western Anbar province, and elsewhere, and an influx of thousands of U.S. troops.

"The commander of Ninevah military operations informed me that Iraqi troops captured Abu Hamza al-Muhajir the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq," al-Askari said by telephone.

He did not have any further details nor did he say when the al-Qaida leader was arrested. According to unconfirmed reports he was caught Thursday evening in the Tayran area in central Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Mosul is currently a major battleground for U.S. forces and al-Qaida.

Taking over from al-Zarqawi
Al-Masri, an Egyptian militant, took over al-Qaida in Iraq after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed June 7, 2006 in a U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad.

The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organization that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, last year announced an "Islamic Cabinet" for Iraq and named al-Masri as "minister of war."

U.S. officials said al-Masri joined an extremist group led by al-Qaida's No.2 official in 1982. He joined al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan in 1999 and trained as a car bombing expert before traveling to Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

According to associates in Afghanistan, al-Masri has been involved in Islamic extremist movements since 1982, when he joined Islamic Jihad, a terror group led by Ayman al-Zawahri, who became bin Laden's chief deputy.

Al-Masri fought with Muslim rebels against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and later ran al-Qaida training camps there.

U.S. officials said al-Masri joined an extremist group led by al-Qaida's No. 2 official. He later joined al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan in 1999 and trained as a car bombing expert before traveling to Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Islamic websites have claimed he personally killed two American soldiers within days of Zarqawi's killing, leaving their mutilated, booby-trapped bodies in the city of Yusufiya.

His real name is Youssef Al Dardiri. Al Dardiri was originally from Sohag, about 300 miles south of Cairo. He then lived in Cairo in an area called Zawya Al Hamra, poor to middle-class area that was one of the sites of fundamentalist activity in the early 80's. He didn't belong to a fundamentalist organization but subscribed to the Jihad ideology. He wasn't on the security chart in Egypt because he never engaged in any activities here.

In the early 1990s, he went to Yemen, which was then a place where Egyptian Jihadists gathered and planned and organized attacks on Egyptian politicians.

SOURCE

I hope they hit him with a Chinese phone book.

US military denies Iraq report of al-Qaida arrest
By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military on Friday denied Iraqi government claims that the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq was captured and said a man with a similar name had been arrested in the northern city of Mosul.

"Neither coalition forces nor Iraqi security forces detained or killed Abu Ayyub al-Masri. This guy had a similar name," said Maj. Peggy Kageleiry, a U.S. military spokeswoman in northern Iraq. She said no additional details were being immediately provided.

Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said the confusion arose because the commander of Iraqi forces in northern Ninevah province was convinced that he had arrested al-Masri — also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir.

"We called the commander of Ninevah operations 10 times and every time he insisted it was Abu Hamza al-Muhajir because when they caught him, they asked him whether his name was Abu Hamza al-Muhajir and he said yes," al-Askari told The Associated Press by phone.

He added that the commander repeatedly "insisted that it was him, how can we deny him then."

There had been false alarms in the past about al-Masri. At least twice — in 2006 and May 2007 — reports circulated that he was dead, but they were later proved wrong.

FULL STORY




They all SOUND alike.

Damn. Then they should hit the guy in Ninevah with the Chinese phone book for being a dumbass.