Abu Ayyub Al-Masri - Rise To Prominence

Rise To Prominence

Abu Ayyub al-Masri was in the list of persons wanted by the Coalition armed forces and Iraqi authorities since 2005, or possibly earlier.

The Mujahideen Shura Council, which claims to speak for Tenzheem Qa'adah al-Jihad and other groups in Iraq, named Abu Hamza al-Muhajir as their new emir in June 2006. However, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley said, “It’s not clear at this point who is in (control). We’ve seen a number of different reports … In our view it’s not yet settled.” After al-Baghdadi's alleged capture by the American forces, on 7 March 2007, the media started reporting about al-Masri's standing in the insurgency and the video tape released to the media in which al-Masri proclaims al-Baghdadi was "the ruler of believers", with Iraqi Qaeda fighters under his command. Al-Masri, as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, was denoted as "al-Zarqawi's successor" by the Coalition and the Bush administration posted a bounty on him, later raised to $25 million.

In 2008, the bounty was reduced to $100,000, with Central Command spokesman Jamie Graybeal stating that "The current assessment, based on a number of factors, shows that is not ... an effective leader of al Qaeda in Iraq as he was last year," although, as the spokesman stated, "for security reasons," he couldn't go into detail about the assessment. The reduction of reward money knocked al-Masri off the U.S. State Department "Rewards for Justice" program list and placed him on a Department of Defense list for people with lower bounties.