AQI Leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri Arrested UPDATE: Mistaken Identity

The Iraqi government claims to have arrested Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was arrested in the northern city of Mosul, the Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman said Thursday. 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.

I doubt this will make any terrific difference. We’ve captured or “otherwise dealt with” more number twos and number threes than you can shake a stick at over the years and buried this guy’s predecessor under a ton of rubble. Still, if true, it at least means the Iraqi security forces are getting better.

Then again, al Maliki will likely let him go soon in some deal that makes no sense to anyone outside the country.

UPDATE: AP: “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.”

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. G.A.Phillips says:

    Water board him anyhow!

  2. arky says:

    “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.”

    He’s probably just another air marshal identified on the terrorist watch list.

  3. Michael says:

    Water board him anyhow!

    The update makes a better case against you than anything I could have done.

  4. G.A.Phillips says:

    The update makes a better case against you than anything I could have done.

    Dude we can’t W-board a punk-ass terror leader but I’m sure your all good with ripping babies out of wombs, man get some proper standards.

    “kill the babies but save the terrorists”, I got to go South park and say “what the f-ck is wrong with liberal people”.

    Oh and and I would like to officially copyright W-board and W-boarding, thats unless some all ready did it.

  5. Michael says:

    Dude we can’t W-board a punk-ass terror leader but I’m sure your all good with ripping babies out of wombs, man get some proper standards.

    Only in your haste to waterboard _somebody_, you deglected to make sure that person actually was a “punk-ass terror leader”. So let’s go on a hypothetical and suppose someone actually followed through on your suggestion:

    1.) Since we believed he was a “punk-ass terror leader”, we would be trying to extract leader-level information from him.

    2.) Since he was in fact was _not_ a terror leader, he would not have been able to provide us with leader-level information.

    3.) We would continue waterboarding him until we obtained the leader-level information we were after.

    4.) The suspect would eventually make up whatever leader-level information he thought would make the waterboarding stop. This information would be worse than useless.

    5.) Americans die because we relied on bad information on future missions.

    So, in conclusion, “torturing AQ suspect” == “dead Americans”. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to kill any more Americans than we already are.

  6. G.A.Phillips says:

    So, in conclusion, “torturing AQ suspect” == “dead Americans”. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to kill any more Americans than we already are.

    Man who taught you this crap, Muslim terrorist kill our troops because their god tells them its the quickest way to go to heaven and because they are true believers and they murder every one Else they don’t like for pretty much the same reason.It’s a religion of terror for the god terrors sake, get a grip and stop blaming your country for what they do and why they do it.

    Dude:w-boarding=interrogation+saving lives

    abortion=torture+murder

  7. Michael says:

    Dude:w-boarding=interrogation+saving lives

    Only if the interrogation provides useful information. If it produces bad information that we take for good, it will jeopardize American lives.

  8. mike says:

    I wouldn’t try to reason with G.A. – he clearly is being sarcastic (I hope) or just really stupid.

  9. Michael says:

    mike,
    Experience has show me that he doesn’t do sarcasm.