U.S. IDs New Iraq Terror Chief

(CBS/AP)  The U.S. military said the man claiming to be the new al Qaeda in Iraq leader is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian with ties to al Qaeda's No. 2 leader.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said al-Masri apparently is the same person as a man identified by the nom de guerre Abu Hamza al-Muhajer who has claimed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and vowed to avenge him in threatening Web statements in recent days.

The Afghanistan-trained Al-Masri, an explosives expert, was a key figure in the al Qaeda in Iraq network and was long responsible for facilitating the movement of foreign fighters from Syria into Baghdad, Caldwell said at a news conference.

When the United States attacked Afgahnistan after Sept. 11, both Zarqawi and al-Masri fled to Iraq. Al-Masri took charge of operations in the so-called "triangle of death" south of Baghdad and ran the pipeline of foreign fighters that kept Zarqawi supplied with suicide bombers, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin. The fact that he has survived for this long when so many other leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq have been killed or captured indicates al-Masri is either very lucky, very good — or both.

He has been a terrorist since 1982, "beginning with his involvement in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was led by (Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman) al-Zawahri," Caldwell said.

CBS News consultant and former CIA analyst Michael Schueur believes al-Masri is bin Laden's personal choice to replace Zarqawi.

"Bin Laden's choice for major military commanders have always been Egyptian and if this man is Egyptian — Masri means Egyptian — then I would imagine it is Bin Laden's direct choice," Schueur told Martin.

"[al-Masri] really is more closely tied to Bin Laden's number one deputy because they are both Egyptian," CBS News Military Analyst and retired Army Col. Mitch Mitchell said. "He is the person who has been in Afghanistan at the training camps that Osama Bin Laden has set up. He has run in the right circles."

The spokesman added that raids in April and May in southern Baghdad recovered material that confirmed his high-level involvement in the facilitation of foreign fighters.

"Al-Masri's intimate knowledge of al Qaeda in Iraq and his close relationship with (al-Zarqawi's) operations will undoubtedly help facilitate and enable them to regain some momentum if in fact he is the one that assumes the leadership role," Caldwell said.

He said, however, that al-Masri's ability to exert leadership over al Qaeda cells remained unclear and there were other "al Qaeda senior leadership members and Sunni terrorists" who might try to take over the operations.

In other recent developments:

The Senate Thursday sent President Bush an emergency spending bill meeting his funding requests for America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and aid to Gulf Coast hurricane victims. The 98-1 vote on the $94.5 billion House-Senate compromise legislation gave much-needed funds to support U.S. troops overseas. Most of the money $66 billion goes to the Pentagon for military operations overseas. Only Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., voted against it. The bill would bring to almost $320 billion the tally for the campaign in Iraq and $89 billion for the one in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has floated the idea of offering limited amnesty to some insurgents, which could include the pardon of some militants who attacked U.S. troops, reports CBS News correspondent Lee Cowan. This idea does not sit will with everyone, especially Thursday, when the Pentagon has announced that the death toll of U.S. servicemen and women in Iraq has reached 2,500 since the war began in 2003.

Gunmen shot and killed 10 Shiites on Thursday after pulling them off a bus in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, police said. The 10 men, nine workers at the city's industrial area and the driver, were aged from 20 to 45 and were heading back to their homes, a police officer said.

A woman and her daughter were wounded by a bomb Thursday morning as they were visiting the tome of the woman's son, who was killed in a June 4 sectarian attack against students in the volatile Diyala province. Iraqi forces then discovered the cemetery had been booby-trapped by insurgents.

Gunmen killed an engineer and kidnapped another, and a detergent workers was shot to death as he was headed to work elsewhere in western Baghdad, police said, but no major violence was reported in the capital Thursday, a day after a major security operation was launched.

Gunmen stormed a Sunni mosque near Tikrit on Thursday, killing four people and wounding 15, including a fundamentalist Sunni cleric who has spoken out against the killing of Iraqis as part of the insurgency.

A newly-published survey reports that more than 650,000 Iraqis have fled their homeland for Jordan and Syria since the beginning of 2005. According to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, violence has forced over 40 percent of Iraqi professionals to leave the country.

About 500 Shiites attacked the Iranian consulate in Basra on Wednesday, replacing the Iranian flag with an Iraqi banner, throwing stones, destroying a diplomat's car, and setting fire to one of the consulate buildings. Police say the attackers are followers of Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Hassani and apparently were protesting a program shown on Iranian television that accused him of being an Israeli agent.

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