Real Name
The real name of 'Abu Ayyub al-Masri' has still not been definitely established.
'Muhajir' is believed to be a nom de guerre, for certain. 'Muhajir' means "immigrant", "emigrant" or "exile" in Arabic, and is often used to refer to the group of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers who fled to Medina, in the episode known as Hijra. This may indicate that 'Muhajir' is not from Iraq, but rather a person who is an "exile" in his own land, as per the original meaning of muhajir. In the mid-2000s (decade), Zarqawi's group tried to establish a more "local" profile in Iraq, in an attempt to appeal to potential Iraqi recruits, and the name "Muhajir" may alternatively indicate an Iraqi Sunni Muslim who opposes Saddam Hussein.
In 2006, Washington Post reported "Officials in Washington said Masri is also known –and equally unknown– by the name Yusif al-Dardiri (يوسف الدرديري Yūsif ad-Dardīrī )." Egyptian lawyer Montasser el-Zayat, whose former clients, according to press reports, included Ayman al-Zawahiri, reportedly agrees that Abu Ayyub's real name is Yusif al-Dardiri. According to the Washington Post, other unidentified American and Jordanian officials also claim that al-Masri has been an alias of Yusuf al-Dardiri.
On 6 July 2006, according to an al-Jazeera report, the Egyptian newspaper Almasry Alyoum quoted the claim by Mamdouh Ismail, an Egyptian lawyer "known for defending Islamist groups," that "Sharif Hazaa (شريف هزاع Šarīf Hazāʿ), or Abu Ayyub al-Masri", has been in the Tura prison near Cairo for the past seven years. The BBC, in a report filed directly by its Arab affairs analyst, reported the same claim of the Islamist lawyer. The lawyer was later arrested as a "suspect of financing the Al-Qaeda terror network in the region." Note that Ismail's claim quite exactly matches the known details of the imprisonment of Muhammad al-Zawahiri, Ayman's younger brother and an associate of both him and al-Masri.
Al-Masri's real name might have been Abdul-Monim al-Badawi (عبد المنعم البدوي ʿAbd ul-Munʿim al-Badawī ), according to a 2009 al-Qaeda statement describing the makeup of a new "War Cabinet."
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