Was someone here speaking of Iraqi-Sunni insurgent groups? (From the International Herald Tribune)

For more than a year, the leader of one the most notorious insurgent groups in Iraq was said to be a mysterious Iraqi named Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi.

As the titular head of the Islamic State in Iraq, an organization publicly backed by Al Qaeda, Baghdadi issued a steady stream of incendiary pronouncements. Despite claims by Iraqi officials that he had been killed in May, Baghdadi appeared to have persevered unscathed.

On Wednesday, a senior American military spokesman provided a new explanation for Baghdadi’s ability to escape attack: He never existed.

Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, the chief American military spokesman, said the elusive Baghdadi was actually a fictional character whose audio-taped declarations were provided by an elderly actor named Abu Adullah al-Naima.

The ruse, Bergner said, was devised by Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was trying to mask the dominant role that foreigners play in that insurgent organization.
The ploy was to invent Baghdadi, a figure whose very name establishes his Iraqi pedigree, install him as the head of a front organization called the Islamic State of Iraq and then arrange for Masri to swear allegiance to him. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s deputy, sought to reinforce the deception by referring to Baghdadi in his video and Internet statements.

The evidence for the American assertions, Bergner announced at a news briefing, was provided by an Iraqi insurgent: Khalid Abdul Fatah Daud Mahmud al-Mashadani, who was said to have been captured by American forces in Mosul on July 4.

According to Bergner, Mashadani is the most senior Iraqi operative in Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. He got his start in the Ansar al-Sunna insurgent group before joining Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia more than two years ago, and became the group’s “media emir” for all of Iraq. Bergner said that Mashadani was also an intermediary between Masri in Iraq and bin Laden and Zawahiri, whom the Americans assert support and guide their Iraqi affiliate.

“Mashadani confirms that al-Masri and the foreign leaders with whom he surrounds himself, not Iraqis, made the operational decisions” for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, Bergner said.

So, one of the most notorious Sunni “insurgent” groups and its leader, were a fiction designed to mislead people into thinking of them as local Iraqis rather than al Qaeda foreign fighters from Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, etc.

Imagine that!

Bat One: The al Qaeda overstating thing has been around a few places, including AP yesterday. Also, I believe the British media more than the US media, and some media/journalists from the region more (like al Jazeera and Robert Fisk) than those with a clear political agenda back home.

I am not particularly attached to my current theories though and would change them if I found new or better information. Who can you suggest as being low in BS?

Except that the insurgency is being run by former generals of Saddam’s army (according to the some British Middle-East correspondents, like Robert Fisk).

What I have read is that al Qaeda’s role is being overstated.

AV,

First of all, the commonly accepted procedure in situations such as this is for you to offer both a quote, supporting your contention, and a citation so that the rest of us, you audience, can refer to the quoted material ourselves and perhaps note the background and context of what you’re quoting. Your statement “What I have read…” doesn’t mean squat.

If General David Petreaus says the role of al Qaeda is being overstated, or Bill Roggio or Michael Yon, men who are and have been with the troops on the ground, that is likely to carry a lot more weight than some NYT or CNN reporter who never once set foot outside the “Green Zone.”

Second, from actually reading the IHT article I’ve cited above, it seems pretty clear that al Qaeda, rather than overstating their own significance as you’ve suggested, was actually trying to downplay their role in Iraq by the elaborate ruse of making people think that their terrorist actions were those of a domestic “insurgent” group.

Seems to me, you’ve got it exactly backwards. You’ve bought into the al Qaeda cover story, hook, line and sinker! Welcome to the forest.

That is just about it. The USA nabs a top Al Qaeda leader and our democratic leaders are talking about they can surrender so they can pander to their Moveon.org groupies…

Al Qaeda has said that Iraq is the battle field against the American and the West, it’s not be mistated. That is left wing propaganda.

Bat One: What I have read is that al Qaeda’s role is being overstated. The early insurgents (after the invasion) were predominantly of ex-Iraqi military origin.

As for recent insurgent operations, there seems to be conflicting sources as to which individuals/organisations are behind them. I suspect there may be political motives involved.