http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2006/August/focusoniraq_August155.xml§ion=focusoniraq&col=
BAGHDAD - An alleged Al-Qaeda militant suspected of bombing the office of President Jalal Talabani’s party in northern Iraq has been arrested near the oil hub of Kirkuk, the US military said.
US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell said the militant, an Iraqi Kurd, was arrested on August 19 and is a ‘bombmaker suspected of orchestrating some of the most horrific bomb attacks’ in Iraq.
Caldwell said he is considered an ‘explosive expert producing suicide vests, improvised-explosive-devices and detonation devices and is known to have facilitated the movement of high level leaders of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.’
He said the captured individual was also close to the
Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who allegedly took charged of Al-Qaeda’s Iraqi subsididary following the June 7 death of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/38619/Zarqawi's successor in prison for 7 yearsFearing a fear-vaccuum, the Bush administration quickly named
Abu Ayyub al-Masri the bogeyman successor to Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi after the Al Qaeda-Iraq leader's death last month. They put a $5 million price on his head.
In a potentially embarrassing turn of events, however, Zarqawi's successor may already be in an Egyptian prison. For the past seven years.
From Aljazeera:
Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, the purported successor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, is in an Egyptian prison and not Iraq, a lawyer has claimed.
...
"Sharif Hazaa {al-Muhajir} is in Tura prison, and I met him two days ago while I was visiting some of my clients," Ismail, a lawyer known for defending Islamist groups, told the newspaper.