Abu Ayyub al-Masri | |
|---|---|
| أَبُو أَيُّوبَ ٱلْمَصْرِيُّ | |
 Abu Ayyub al-Masri in an undated photo | |
| 2nd Emir ofAl-Qaeda in Iraq | |
| In office June 7, 2006 – October 15, 2006 | |
| Preceded by | Abu Musab al-Zarqawi |
| Succeeded by | Position abolished |
| 2nd Emir of theMujahideen Shura Council | |
| In office June 7, 2006 – October 15, 2006 | |
| Preceded by | Abu Musab al-Zarqawi |
| Succeeded by | Abu Omar al-Baghdadi |
| War Minister of theIslamic State of Iraq | |
| In office October 15, 2006 – April 18, 2010 | |
| Preceded by | Position created |
| Succeeded by | Abu Suleiman al-Naser |
| Prime Minister of theIslamic State of Iraq | |
| In office September 9, 2009 – April 18, 2010 | |
| Preceded by | Abu Abdulrahman al-Falahi |
| Succeeded by | Abu Suleiman al-Naser |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Abdel Moneim Ezz El-Din Ali Al-Badawi عبد المنعم عز الدين علي البدوي 1967[1] |
| Died | 18 April 2010(2010-04-18) (aged 42–43) |
| Cause of death | Airstrike |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |
|
| Years of service | 1980s–2010 |
| Rank | Emir ofAl-Qaeda in Iraq(June – October 2006) Emir of theMujahideen Shura Council(June – October 2006) Minister of theIslamic State of Iraq(October 2006 – April 2010) |
| Battles/wars | |
Abu Ayyub al-Masri (/ˈɑːbuːɑːˈjuːbɑːlˈmɑːsri/ ⓘAH-boo ah-YOOB ahlMAHSS-ree;أَبُو أَيُّوبَ ٱلْمَصْرِيُّ,ʾAbū ʾAyyūb al-Maṣrī, translation: "Father of Ayyub the Egyptian"; 1967 – 18 April 2010),[2] also known asAbu Hamza al-Muhajir[3][4] (pronunciationⓘ;أَبُو حَمْزَةَ ٱلْمُهَاجِرِʾAbū Ḥamzah al-Muhāǧir, translation: "Father of Hamza the immigrant"), bornAbdel Moneim Ezz El-Din Ali Al-Badawi (Arabic:عبد المنعم عز الدين علي البدوي), was anEgyptian militant leader who became the leader ofAl-Qaeda in Iraq during theIraqi insurgency, following the death ofAbu Musab al-Zarqawi in June 2006.[5][6] He was appointed as the "minister of war" of theIslamic State of Iraq from 2006 to 2010 and prime minister of the Islamic State of Iraq from 2009 to 2010.[7] He was killed along with ISI's leaderAbu Omar al-Baghdadi during a raid on theirsafehouse on 18 April 2010.
Abdel Moneim Ezz El-Din Ali Al-Badawi was born in Kafr Al Asar,Sharqia Governorate,Egypt.[8][a] He joined theMuslim Brotherhood[11] and, according to General Caldwell,[12] joinedAyman al-Zawahiri'sEgyptian Islamic Jihad in 1982, where he "worked with Zawahiri." Al-Masri went toAfghanistan in 1999, where he became affiliated with theAl-Qaeda network and attendedOsama bin Laden's al-Farouk camp, becoming an expert with explosives.
al-Masri enteredYemen using a fake passport under the name "Yussef Haddad Labib" and taught in village schools. He married Hasna Yahia Ali Hussein, a native of Yemen, in the capitalSanaa in 1998 and they had three children. Hasna was arrested in the same April 18 operation in theLake Tharthar area, south of Baghdad, in which her husband was killed.[13] "I only found out that he was Abu Ayyub al-Masri after the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," Hasna subsequently stated, referring to the Jordanian commander of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, who was killed in a 2006 US air raid and replaced by her husband. Hasna asserted that her husband had always been a "secretive character". In 2011, his wife Hasna was sentenced to death in Iraq.[8]
After the American invasion ofAfghanistan, al-Masri went toIraq via theUnited Arab Emirates in 2002, according to the subsequent account given by his widow. He lived initially in Baghdad's Karrada, then in the Amiriya fainal,[check spelling] and then al-Jadida, where he took charge of al-Qaeda's operations in the southern part of the country.[14][15] The United States military said that Masri "helped draw other insurgent groups into al-Qaeda’s fold."[15]DefenseLINK News reported that Masri "helped establish the Baghdad cell of al-Qaeda in early 2003". Soon after, he "worked the ‘rat line’ down theEuphrates River Valley supplying suicide bombers viaSyria."[16][17] After the US-led invasion, the family leftBaghdad for Diyala to the north. Hasna related "The two-storey house where we were was hit in a US air raid. Then, one of the men was killed but my husband and I were able to escape toFallujah" [theSunni Arab town west of Baghdad that was at the time a bastion of the anti-US insurgency]. al-Masri participated in the major 2004battle of Fallujah. After US troops stormed the town in November 2004, the family moved again, this time to the town ofAbu Ghraib, on the western outskirts of the capital. In 2007, al-Masri and his family moved to the Lake Tharthar area. "We were changing houses the whole time, right up to his death," claimed Hasna.[18]
In a text posted online, al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed thatAbu Hamza al-Muhajir personally killedtwo U.S. Army soldiers who disappeared after an ambush in Iraq on 16 June 2006, as a means of "making his presence felt."[19] Their bodies were later found mutilated and booby-trapped inYusufiyah, Iraq, on 19 June 2006.[20][21]
On 20 September 2006, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir claimed responsibility for personally killing Turkish hostageMurat Yuce, whose execution was captured in a video first released in August 2004. Murat Yuce was killed with three gunshot wounds to the head.[22] He had been kidnapped in late July 2004, along with Turk co-worker Aytullah Gezmen, who was released in September 2004.[23]
Abu Ayyub al-Masri was on the list of persons wanted by the coalition forces and Iraqi authorities in 2005, or possibly earlier.[24]
TheMujahideen Shura Council, which included Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Iraqi insurgent groups, named Abu Hamza al-Muhajir[25] as their new emir in June 2006 following the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. However,National Security AdvisorStephen Hadley said, "It’s not clear at this point who is in control. We’ve seen a number of different reports … In our view it’s not yet settled." On 15 October 2006, the Mujahideen Shura Council officially rebranded itself as the Islamic State of Iraq appointingAbu Omar al-Baghdadi as its emir and Abu Ayyub al-Masri as "Minister of War".
After Abu Omar al-Baghdadi's alleged capture by the American forces on 7 March 2007, the media started reporting about al-Masri's standing in the insurgency, and a video tape was released to the media in which al-Masri proclaims al-Baghdadi "the commander of the believers", with Iraqi Qaeda fighters under his command. al-Masri, as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, was denoted as "al-Zarqawi's successor" by the Coalition[26] and the Bush administration posted a bounty on him, later raised to $25 million.[27]
In 2008, the bounty was reduced to $100,000, with Central Command spokesmanJamie Graybeal stating that "The current assessment, based on a number of factors, shows that [al-Masri] is not ... an effective leader of al Qaeda in Iraq as he was last year," although, as the spokesman stated, "for security reasons", he couldn't go into detail about the assessment. The reduction of reward money knocked al-Masri off the U.S. State Department "Rewards for Justice" program list and placed him on a Department of Defense list for people with lower bounties.[4][28]
On October 24, 2008 an interview with Abu Ayyub al-Masri was released by theAl-Furqan Institute for Media Production. The audio runs for a total of 44 minutes.[29] At one point he said his group carried out its "last operation in Britain, a good part of which waslaunched on the airport, and the rest was not carried out due to a mistake made by one of the brothers."[30] There is support for this claim as just before the two men set off from Loch Lomond to Glasgow airport Kafeel Ahmed sent a text message to his brother Sabeel in Liverpool telling him to go to an email account. Secondly Bilal Abdulla (the other bomber) addressed his will to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, "Minister of War", who were the leader and deputy leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.[31] There were reports that al-Muhajir recruited people for the plot between 2004 and 2005.[32]
'Abu Hamza al-Muhajir' was erroneously reported killed during a US raid inHaditha in October 2006,[33] and in an "internal battle between militants" in May 2007.[34] The person killed in the latter report was actually Muharib Abdul Latif al-Jubouri, a senior member of Al-Qaida in Iraq and the "public relations minister" of al-Baghdadi's shadow cabinet.[35]
On April 18, 2010, Abu Ayyub al-Masri was killed in a joint American and Iraqi operation nearTikrit.[36][37] The coalition forces believed al-Masri to be wearing a suicide vest and proceeded cautiously. After the lengthy exchange of fire and bombing of the house, the Iraqi troops stormed inside and found two women still alive, one of whom was al-Masri's wife, identified as al-Masri,Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, and al-Baghdadi's son. A suicide vest was found on al-Masri's corpse, according to the Iraqi Army.[38] Iraqi Prime MinisterNouri al-Maliki announced the killings of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri at a news conference in Baghdad and showed reporters photographs of their corpses. "The attack was carried out by ground forces which surrounded the house, and also through the use of missiles," Maliki said. "During the operation computers were seized with e-mails and messages to the two biggest terrorists, Osama bin Laden and [his deputy] Ayman al-Zawahiri," Maliki added. U.S. forces commander Gen.Raymond Odierno praised the operation. "The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to al-Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency," he said. "There is still work to do but this is a significant step forward in ridding Iraq of terrorists." ISI spokesmanAbu Muhammad al-Adnani also confirmed both of their deaths in an audiotape released on a jihadist forum website in 2011 where he stated that the 'two knights of jihad had dismounted from their horses'.
On April 25, 2010, a four-page announcement by the Islamic State of Iraq organisation was posted on a militant website early Sunday confirming the deaths of al-Masri and al-Baghdadi. TheISI's shariah minister, Abu al-Walid Abd al-Wahhab al-Mashadani, stated in the announcement that the two leaders were attending a meeting when "enemy forces" engaged them in battle and launched an airstrike on their location. The announcement, in an apparent reference to the previous Friday's extensive bomb attacks, claimed that the "Crusaders and the Shi'ites will exploit the incident to improve the image of Iraqi security services and give the enemy alliance an 'illusory' victory after themass-casualty incidents carried out by the ISI in Baghdad."[39]
US Vice-PresidentJoe Biden stated that the deaths of the top two al-Qaeda figures in Iraq are "potentially devastating" blows to the terror network there and proof that Iraqi security forces are gaining ground.[40]
On May 14, 2010,al-Nasser Lideen Illah Abu Suleiman (الناصر لدين الله أبو سليمانan-Nāṣir li-Dīn-illāh ʾAbū Sulaymān) replaced al-Masri as war minister of theIslamic State of Iraq.[41]
| Preceded by | Head ofAl-Qaeda in Iraq 2006–2010 | Succeeded by |
