Scoffing at Allegations of Ties to Saddam, Zarqawi's Al-Qaida Claims Link to Egyptian Islamic Jihad Elite

By Evan Kohlmann

Al-Qaida's Committee in Mesopotamia--led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi--has issued a new edition in its "Distinguished Martyrs" series, on this occasion profiling an Egyptian and two Palestinians from Jordan who were killed together during a battle with U.S. military forces in Iraq.  The group included:

• Abu Khabab al-Falastini - A Palestinian from Jordan trained at Al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan during the 1980s.  Later, he was arrested by security forces in Azerbaijan as he attempted to cross over into Chechnya and join the Arab-Afghan mujahideen loyal to Ibn-ul-Khattab.  Upon his release by the Azeris, Abu Khabab headed back to Afghanistan and eventually on to Iraq in order to join in "the courageous battle."  According to Al-Qaida, Abu Khabab was the teacher of Abu Usama al-Maghribi, the Moroccan suicide bomber responsible for the second attack on the United Nations compound in Baghdad in September 2003.
• Abu Umar al-Masri - A 37-year old senior Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) leader trained in Yemen and Afghanistan who later joined a group of other elite EIJ operatives in Albania preparing for jihad in nearby Kosovo.  When other members of the infamous "Albanian Returnees" group were seized in a joint mission by Albanian security services and the CIA for targeting the U.S. embassy in Tirana, Abu Umar fled Albania for Italy, where he was imprisoned for several years as a suspected terrorist.  After a harrowing trip through Germany, Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria, Abu Umar eventually ended up in Iraq just prior to the fall of Saddam Hussein and joined Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

One of the more interesting elements of Al-Qaida's latest "martyr" biography is how the author, Abu Ismail al-Muhajir, portrays the state of Al-Qaida in Iraq in early 2003 and its supposed connections with the former regime of Saddam Hussein:

"As I have explained before, the brothers in Iraq decided to stay out of the war and not to fight alongside Saddam until the war was over and Saddam�s regime was eliminated.  They had many reasons for making this decision... Nonetheless, the situation took a turn for the worse after the regime�s collapse... we decided to stay and hide [in Iraq].  There was always the possibility that Allah would reward us with jihad.  We collected weapons from the various camps, and purchased some weapons as well.  We continued to stock up on supplies in preparation for the day when the Kalashnikovs would sing joyfully once again.  Thereafter, we met with the lion Shaykh Abu Musab [al-Zarqawi].  Slowly but surely, the jihad movement began to progress forward and succeeded in awakening the entire world with the great light of jihad and martyrdom in the name of Allah."

Click to view English translation c/o Globalterroralert.com

*UPDATE* (1/13 3:15pm EST): I've added another Iraq-jihad related item for download on Globalterroralert.com: a new video from Zarqawi's Al-Qaida faction of a recent suicide truck bomb attack in Baghdad that it has labeled "The Battle of Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman."  Rahman--the spiritual leader of the Egyptian Al-Gama`at al-Islamiyya terrorist organization--is currently being held in a U.S. prison for his role in a 1993 conspiracy to launch a wave of attacks targeting New York landmarks, including the World Trade Center.

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