Dissension in the Ranks over Al-Qaida's New Chief in Iraq
By Evan Kohlmann
Since the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on June 8, the U.S. military has been aggressively engaging the news media regarding the airstrike that killed Zarqawi and his potential successors as chief of Al-Qaida. Within days of Zarqawi's passing, the Pentagon focused its attention primarily on a little-known Egyptian mujahideen middleman known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri--who, for most of us, first surfaced in a CENTCOM most wanted list about a year and a half ago. When Al-Qaida subsequently announced that Zarqawi's actual successor would actually be another unknown named Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, the Pentagon revised their earlier statement and Major General William Caldwell explained to a press conference, "We think that Abu Ayyub al-Masri is in fact, probably, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. They are probably one and the same."
Unfortunately, this conclusion has been called into serious doubt by a host of fairly credible sources. Many in the jihadist community that support Al-Qaida are openly scoffing at Major General Caldwell's latest press conference and they have called upon the Al-Qaida-umbrella group the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC) to issue a new statement and clear up these "lies." I have also spoken with civilian analysts in the U.S. government responsible for tracking insurgents who expressed strong skepticism about the supposed "dual identity" of Abu Ayyub. They have even questioned details pertaining the photo distributed today in the media that purportedly depicts Abu Ayyub.
It is certainly possible that these press conferences are a deliberate ploy by the U.S. military to flush out Al-Qaida and force them to better identify their replacement leadership in the wake of Zarqawi's demise. But unless this is the specific and narrow purpose, the Pentagon should be especially careful that it does not engage in misleading speculation in the media--or it endangers losing significant credibility. With all due respect for the difficult task they have been handed, the military has already committed serious public relations blunders in reporting on progress made in fighting Zarqawi's movement, such as their past insistence on assigning meaningless numeric values to captured or killed Al-Qaida operatives. Let's hope this isn't yet another one...