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New Reports of Al-Qaida's Foreign Fighters Killed in Iraq

By Evan Kohlmann

Over the past two months, despite a tightening of security on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border, reports continue to stream out of Iraq and neighboring regions concerning foreign fighters recently killed in clashes between Al-Qaida and U.S. forces. Among those reports:

- A videotaped eulogy for half a dozen Palestinian fighters from South Lebanon loyal to Asbat al-Ansar who were killed in various locations from Karabilah to Samarra.

- The biography of Saudi Arabian national Abu Muaz al-Janoobi--who failed in his first effort to join the jihad in Afghanistan--only to later travel on to Iraq, where he allegedly crashed an ambulance packed with more than a ton of explosives into a U.S. base in Husaybah.

- The biography of Yemeni national Abu Uthman al-Yemeni, who also drove a suicide car bomb into a U.S. post in Husaybah, and who modeled himself after one of the suicide bombers featured in Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's first full-length propaganda film, "The Winds of Victory."

- The biography of Abu Hamza al-Shami, a Syrian national who reportedly fought alongside such notorious figures as Abdelaziz al-Muqrin, Abu Hafs al-Masri, and Abu Zubair al-Haili during the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001. Afterwards, the veteran Abu Hamza traveled on to Saudi Arabia, and then to Iraq where he became "a mobile war machine who loved the sound of bullets and 'takbirs.'"

- The biography of Sudanese national Abu Hamza al-Sudani who used to constantly urge his comrades, "The most important thing is that we wreak havoc upon the enemies of Allah and ask Allah for martyrdom."

- The biography of Abu Bakr al-Qasimi, from Saudi Arabia, who was an influential jihad financier for Arab-Afghan campaigns in Chechnya, Afghanistan, and elsewhere and who believed that the Saudi jihad front "was of paramount importance and that this was an integral part of the plan to fight the Americans and the Jews wherever they may be." Later, his work in an Al-Qaida anti-aircraft unit based in Iraq was so productive that it merited personal visits by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and chances to participate in "several large-scale operations," including a dramatic suicide bombing attack in the Iraqi city of Al-Qaim by Abu Shaheed al-Lubnani.

See also: April 2005 video of suicide bombing by Abu Shaheed al-Lubnani

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Courtesy of the Counterterrorism Blog: By Evan Kohlmann Over the past two months, despite a tightening of security on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border, reports continue to stream out of Iraq and neighboring regions concerning foreign fighters r... [Read More]