Sunday night, while listening to Liz Cheney and Debra Burlingame speak at a function in Los Angeles (the two co-founded Keep America Safe with Bill Kristol), I was reminded that al-Qaeda has two roots: one in Saudi Arabia from Osama bin Laden, and one in Egypt, from Ayman al-Zawahiri.
This made it particularly interesting to wake up on Monday morning to news of a major military success against al-Qaeda.
Most of the world now knows that U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces, in what is being touted as a joint operation, have killed the two most wanted men in Iraq: Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. While holding up gruesome photographs of the dead terrorists, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told reporters:
During the operation computers were seized with e-mails and messages to the two biggest terrorists, Osama bin Laden and [his deputy] Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Abu Ayyub al-Masri is an alias that translates as “the Egyptian.” He was allegedly hand-picked by Ayman al-Zawahiri and trained by Osam bin Laden to specialize in truck bombs. Before his death, he was considered the terrorists’ top military commander in Iraq, a position he took over in 2006 after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi met a similar fate by U.S. air strikes.
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi translates along the lines of “the Faithful Prince of Baghdad.” He was the figurehead for the Islamic State of Iraq. Little else is known about al-Baghdadi. His death, as well as the death of al-Masri, had been incorrectly reported several times before by Prime Minister al-Maliki. Wafiq al-Samaraei, a former general in the Iraqi military intelligence services and a former advisor to the president, told Al Jazeera:
It is true we heard many allegations in the past about the capture of Baghdadi and or al-Masri but they were from the Iraqi side only and the U.S. Army in Iraq used to keep silent. … This time we have a U.S. confirmation.
Providing that confirmation was General David Petraeus:
These two extremist leaders were responsible for barbaric attacks that killed thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens and Iraqi and Coalition Security Force members. Their deaths constitute another major milestone in the effort to defeat extremism in Iraq.
A milestone, indeed. This news could not come at a more important time, particularly coming on the heels of the leaked Gates memo, which states that the military has no plan to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. Liz Cheney, regarding the memo, stated:
From my experience working with [officials] in the Middle East, [this sends a] worrisome message to Arab leaders. It makes America appear apologetic and weak.
Indeed, President Obama remained oddly silent regarding what one of his top commanders perceives to be a “major milestone.” Vice President Joe Biden spoke from the White House instead of the president. He is the president’s point person on Iraq, but this is considerable news that perhaps should come from the commander in chief.
Biden called the deaths of the two terrorists “potentially devastating blows” to al-Qaeda, but he also inflated the importance of the Iraqi contribution while downplaying U.S. military might:
But equally important in my view … is [that] this action demonstrates the improved security strength and capacity of Iraqi security forces. The Iraqis led this operation, and it was based on intelligence the Iraqi security forces themselves developed following their capture of a senior AQI leader last month.
That the Iraqis “led this operation” sounds like a significant stretch. Intelligence may have located the terrorists, but it was certainly the U.S. military that ended their deadly reign in Iraq. CNN reports that the bodies of the two men were found in a hole inside the house they were hiding in when U.S. air power struck them.
I called the Pentagon to learn more about what weapons systems were used — thus far they have only described “air strikes.” Air Force Major Richard Johnson informed me that he did not have “access to that data” at the Pentagon and sent my query to “the appropriate office at the Combined Air Operations Center in Qatar.”
My question specifically: did drones play a role? That information will reveal a lot more about how America is working in partnership with local governments to win the war.
UPDATE: A third al-Qaeda in Iraq leader has been killed in a second, joint U.S. and Iraqi forces operation. Ahmed al-Obeidi, commander of terrorist operations in the northern provinces, was killed early Tuesday morning during a raid in Nineveh, according to Iraq’s Ministry of Defense.
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