The group's "religious emir." He was captured and released in 2004. "Key Figure in al-Qaida in Iraq Killed," from AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
A key al-Qaida in Iraq leader described as the group's "religious emir" was killed in a U.S. airstrike hours before two American soldiers went missing and in the same area, the military said Tuesday.Mansour Suleiman Mansour Khalifi al-Mashhadani, or Sheik Mansour, and two foreign fighters were killed as they tried to flee in a vehicle near the town of Youssifiyah, in the so-called Sunni "Triangle of Death."
U.S. coalition forces had been tracking al-Mashhadani for some time, American military spokesman William Caldwell said in announcing his death. He said al-Mashhadani was an Iraqi, 35 to 37 years old, and that one of the men killed with him was an al-Qaida cell leader identified as Abu Tariq....
Caldwell said the Iraqi militant played a key religious and recruiting role in the group. The spokesman said Mansour was linked to the senior leadership, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a June 7 U.S. airstrike, and Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the man the U.S. military has identified as al-Zarqawi's replacement.
Mansour "reportedly served as a right-hand man of Zarqawi's, and also served as a liaison between al-Qaida in Iraq and the various tribes in the Youssifiyah area, as well as playing a key role in their media operations," Caldwell said....
The U.S. military captured Mansour in July 2004 because of his ties to the militant groups Ansar al-Islam and Ansar al-Sunna, but released him because he was not deemed an important terror figure at the time, the spokesman said.
"catch & release" may be okay when applied to certain kinds of fishing, but when applied to Jihad-freaks and jihad warfare it resembles something between silly and stupid...
The US has sunk to a new low. It has turned into a "humanitarian" cesspool, where traitors are no longer executed, where treason and sabotage are no longer a crime, but just another sacrifice on the altar of multi-culti and diversity.
There is no culture of understanding, there is no common interest for the 'good' or betterment of the nation, or western culture altogether, there are instead powerful interests at work to divert and distract attention away from the jihad, and what irks me is the obvious cheapness of it all.
Corruption is no longer a dirty word, many crawling creeps in government and in the media are working hand in hand to bite the hand that feeds them and to destroy what they all never believed in, for there is obviously something more important, something more primitive and uniting, it must pay well but who will be there to enjoy it?
If Islam should succeed in conquering our nations there will be little left to enjoy...
Mansour released ?
Is this the way to fight a war ?
Is it the journalist embeds with their 'highest journalistic ethics' that are inhibiting the military ? Get rid of these jerks - dont let them near the front, which has to be a killing ground first and foremost. The more of the enemy killed, the sooner the war is won.
CNN and the NYTimes are such crap now.
It appears al-Masri now claims (just like the recently deceased ABU) to be the actual participant in the killing of Infidels. And just like Abu, he must now continuously look over his shoulder and never know who to trust. He has sealed his fate. He, too, will become a marytr for the Peaceful Religion of Islam. It is only a matter of time.
The force of America have a wealth of information obtained when they eliminated ABU. It received little MSM attention but the American conducted a large number of raids immediately after Abu's demise and recovered a sizeable number of weapons, explosives, and more documents which will lead to the identification and elimination of other key leaders in the cult of death know as Islam. The raids were quite successful.
The Muslims are desparate and they are reacting in the only way they know--death and destruction. Every day you read about bodies found--killed execution style often with signs of torture. It could be the way they deal with people who do not want to participate in wanton killing of their own people. This Peaceful Religion shows no compassion, love, or life sustaining messages--only death, torture, and plunder.
dgene,
I hated it like anything when the army spokesman was asked if zarkawi had been given mouth to mouth. And how long he lived after the strike. The MSM is treating war like a circus. The soldiers have to kill in order to survive themselves. What is the entire point of an airstrike if soldiers have to give mouth to mouth to a terrorist, and then admit him into i.c.u., nurturing him till he is well, and then a farce of a trial. Unless and until these embedded journos are called back and the army told to fight to win, our soldiers shall die needlessly. What do we need to know about battlefront anyway ?
arjun.sevak-
Hoof to mouth would have be more fitting.
I didn't hear this particular laughable piece of patent lunacy, but it is of the same wholecloth suicidal imbecility that stalks the popular media, -Western and otherwise:
-Did we do all we could, after trying to kill the homicidal, scum-sucking bastard for three years, to save him once we failed to kill him instantly?
If I were in the press corps I would have asked:
"If Zarqawi vomited blood on any Irai or U.S. military uniforms as he died, will we send the cleaning bill to Osama Bin Laden?"
Let's fight like we have some shred of sense and self-preservation left in us.
Or Islam wins.
Slowly, perhaps.
But wins, yes.