Top al Qaeda leader captured

From the Associated Press:

The Pentagon announced Friday the capture of one of al-Qaida's most senior and most experienced operatives, an Iraqi who was trying to return to his native country when he was captured.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the captive is Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi. He was transferred to Defense Department custody this week from the CIA, Whitman said, but the spokesman would not say where or when al-Iraqi was captured or by whom.

Apparently he's been shipped to Guantanamo Bay, and is now the 15th "high-value detainee" being held there in U.S. custody.

So who exactly is this guy? Here are some interesting background details from the AP dispatch:

Whitman said al-Iraqi was believed responsible for plotting cross-border attacks from Pakistan on U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and that he led an effort to assassinate Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, as well as unspecified officials of the United Nations.

"Abd al-Hadi (al-Iraqi) was trying to return to his native country, Iraq, to manage al-Qaida's affairs and possibly focus on operations outside Iraq against Western targets," Whitman said, adding that the terror suspect met with al-Qaida members in Iran. He said he did not know when al-Iraqi was in Iran.

...The Pentagon said al-Iraqi was born in Mosul, in northern Iraq, in 1961. Whitman said he was a key al-Qaida paramilitary leader in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, and during 2002-04 led efforts to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan with terrorist forces based in Pakistan.

In August 2005, al-Iraqi appeared in a purported al-Qaida-made video that shows militants in Afghanistan — including Europeans, Arabs and others — preparing to attack U.S. troops and showing off what they said was a U.S. military laptop.

Al-Iraqi, speaking in the video with a scarf hiding his face, said the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have created "two fronts" for recruiting terrorists to the cause of bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar. "Now all the world is united behind Mullah Omar and Sheik Osama," he says.

Whitman said al-Iraqi was associated with leaders of other extremist groups allied with al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including the Taliban. He worked directly with the Taliban to determine lines of communication between Taliban and al-Qaida leaders in Afghanistan, specifically about the targeting of U.S. forces, the spokesman said.

The Pentagon said al-Iraqi spent more than 15 years in Afghanistan and at one point was an instructor in an al-Qaida training camp there. Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he was a member of al-Qaida's ruling Shura Council, a now-defunct 10-person advisory body to bin Laden, the Pentagon said.

He also was a member of al-Qaida's military committee, which oversaw terrorist and guerrilla operations and paramilitary training, according to the Pentagon.

Update: Here are some more interesting details about this al-Iraqi person. This time from the U.S. government website Rewards for Justice:

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi is one of Usama bin Laden’s top global deputies, personally chosen by bin Laden to monitor al Qaeda operations in Iraq. Al-Hadi was the former Internal Operations Chief for al Qaeda. He has been associated with numerous attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and has been known to facilitate communication between al Qaeda in Iraq and al Qaeda. Al-Hadi rose to the rank of Major in Saddam Hussein’s army before moving to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet Union.

Hmmm, so al-Iraqi was a major in Saddam's army. Now what could that mean? Nothing, I suppose - I mean, we're sure about there not being any pre-invasion links between Saddam and al Qaeda, right?

Wrong, but you'd never know that from the media's accounts.

Anyway, I wonder if anyone collected the $1 million reward that the U.S. government was offering under the Rewards for Justice program. To date, the U.S. government says its distributed some $62 million in reward money under this program.

Incidentally, you can still collect $10 million if you can provide information that will lead to the capture of Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, who served as Vice Chairman under Saddam. Then there are at least another dozen or so other former regime elements that are worth up to $1 million each to the U.S. government.

The big rewards - up to $25 million - are, not surprisingly, reserved for Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. But there are the dozens of other terrorists who could net someone anywhere from $1-5 million if they would only turn them in.

I'm not sure how anyone can rationalize not turning in these type of people to the authorities. Anyone who knows where one of these guys is and is protecting him should be ashamed of themselves.

I'm sorry to, um, drop the somewhat professional tone I try to adopt here and to sound like, er, your mother, but the blood of all these people these guys kill or order killed is now on your hands.