Mayeen Uddin Rehman

Abu Ayyub al-Masri
Born	c. 1968 Egypt
Died	18 April 2010 Thar-Thar, Salah ad Din Governorate, Iraq
Religion	Sunni Islam

Abu Ayyub al-Masri (ca. 1968 - 18 April 2010), also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir and other aliases (see Real Name, was an active combatant of al-Qaeda and a senior aide to former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. When Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike on 7 June 2006, U.S. Pentagon sources identified al-Masri as among the prime candidates to assume direction of the Iraqi insurgency. On 12 June 2006, the al-Qaeda in Iraq website announced that al-Masri had been appointed the new leader of the insurgent group. He was killed during a raid on his house on 18 April 2010.

Entry in militant groups

Born in Egypt, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood and, according to General Caldwell, joined Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad in 1982, where he "worked with Zawahiri." Al-Masri went to bin Laden’s al-Farouk camp in Afghanistan in 1999, where he became an expert with explosives, especially truck bombs and roadside bombs like those currently used in Iraq.

Marriage

Al-Masri entered Yemen using a fake passport under the name "Yussef Haddad Labib" and taught in village schools. He got married to Hasna, a native of Yemen, in the capital Sanaa in 1998 and they had three children. Hasna was arrested in the same April 18 operation in the Lake Tharthar area, south of Baghdad, in which her husband was killed. "I only found out that he was Abu Ayyub al-Masri after the death of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi," Hasna subsequently stated, referring to the notorious Jordanian commander of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, who was killed in a 2006 US air raid and replaced by her husband. Hasna asserted that her husband had always been a "secretive character."

Move to Iraq

After the American invasion of Afghanistan, al-Masri went to Iraq via the United Arab Emirates, in 2002, according to the subsequent account given by his widow Hasna. He lived initially in Baghdad's Karrada, then in the Amiriya fainal, and then al-Jadida, where he took charge of al-Qaeda’s operations in the southern part of the country. The United States military said that Masri "helped draw other insurgent groups into al-Qaeda’s fold." DefenseLINK News reported that Masri "helped establish the Baghdad cell of al-Qaeda in early 2003". Soon after, he "worked the ‘rat line’ down the Euphrates River Valley supplying suicide bombers via Syria." After the US-led invasion, the family left Baghdad for Diyala to the north. Hasna related "The two-storey house where we were was hit in a US air raid. Then, one of the men was killed but my husband and I were able to escape to Fallujah" [the Sunni Arab town west of Baghdad that was at the time a bastion of the anti-US insurgency]. Al-Masri participated in the major 2004 battle of Fallujah. After US troops stormed the town in November 2004, the family moved again, this time to the town of Abu Ghraib, on the western outskirts of the capital, which subsequently infamous for its prison and the revelation of abuse of detainees by US guards there. In 2007, al-Masri and his family moved to the Lake Tharthar area. "We were changing houses the whole time, right up to his death," claimed Hasna.

A claim posted on an Islamic website said that Abu Hamza al-Muhajir personally killed two U.S. Army soldiers who disappeared after an ambush in Iraq on 16 June 2006, as a means of "making his presence felt." Their bodies were later found mutilated and booby-trapped in Yusufiyah, Iraq, on 19 June 2006.

On 20 September 2006, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir claimed responsibility for personally killing Turkish hostage Murat Yuce, whose execution was captured in a video first released in August 2004. Murat Yuce was killed with three gunshot wounds to the head. He had been kidnapped in late July 2004, along with Turk co-worker Aytullah Gezmen, who was released in September 2004 after having declared his repentance for having worked for the American side.

Rise to prominence

Abu Ayyub al-Masri was in the list of persons wanted by the Coalition armed forces and Iraqi authorities since 2005, or possibly earlier.

The Mujahideen Shura Council, which claims to speak for Tenzheem Qa'adah al-Jihad and other groups in Iraq, named Abu Hamza al-Muhajir as their new emir in June 2006. However, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley said, “It’s not clear at this point who is in (control). We’ve seen a number of different reports … In our view it’s not yet settled.” After al-Baghdadi's alleged capture by the American forces, on 7 March 2007, the media started reporting about al-Masri's standing in the insurgency and the video tape released to the media in which al-Masri proclaims al-Baghdadi was "the ruler of believers", with Iraqi Qaeda fighters under his command. Al-Masri, as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, was denoted as "al-Zarqawi's successor" by the Coalition and the Bush administration posted a bounty on him, later raised to $25 million.

In 2008, the bounty was reduced to $100,000, with Central Command spokesman Jamie Graybeal stating that "The current assessment, based on a number of factors, shows that [al-Masri] is not ... an effective leader of al Qaeda in Iraq as he was last year," although, as the spokesman stated, "for security reasons," he couldn't go into detail about the assessment. The reduction of reward money knocked al-Masri off the U.S. State Department "Rewards for Justice" program list and placed him on a Department of Defense list for people with lower bounties.

Reports of death

In October 2006, 'Abu Hamza al-Muhajir' was erroneously reported as killed during a US raid in Haditha. In May 2007, 'Abu Ayyub al-Masri', "leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq", was erroneously reported as killed in an "internal battle between militants."