|
IN MARCH, he was declared captured. In May, he was declared killed, and his purported corpse was displayed on state-run TV.
On Wednesday, Omar al-Baghdadi, the supposed leader of an al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Iraq, was declared non-existent by US military officials, who say he is a fictional character created to give an Iraqi face to a foreign-run terrorist group.
In reality, said Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner, an Iraqi actor has read statements attributed to al-Baghdadi, who has been identified since October as the leader of the group, known as Islamic State of Iraq.
The information came from a man captured by US forces early this month, General Bergner said. Identified as Khaled al-Mashhadani, he served as a propaganda chief in the same organisation, a Sunni insurgent group that claims allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
General Bergner said Mashhadani helped create Islamic State of Iraq as a "virtual organisation" that is essentially a pseudonym for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The front organisation was aimed at making Iraqis believe that al-Qaeda in Iraq is a nationalistic group, even though it is led by an Egyptian and has few Iraqis among its leaders, he said.
There was no way to confirm the military's claim, which comes at a time of heightened pressure on the White House to justify keeping US troops in Iraq. Critics say the US President, George Bush, has been trying to provide that justification by linking al-Qaeda to the war in Iraq, even though it had no substantial presence there until after the US invasion in 2003.
A spokesman for the Iraqi Defence Ministry, Mohammed Askari, insisted al-Baghdadi is real. "Al-Baghdadi is wanted and pursued. We know many things about him, and we even have his picture," he said.
The man known as al-Baghdadi emerged as one of Iraq's top insurgent leaders after Islamic State of Iraq emerged last year following the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. In March, the Iraqi Government announced it had captured him, but then acknowledged it had caught someone else.
In May, Iraqi and US officials announced the death of a high-ranking Islamic State of Iraq official. Iraq identified him as al-Baghdadi and showed what it said was his body on television. The US said DNA proved it was someone else.
Wednesday's announcement was the latest in a series of statements from US officials pointing the finger at foreign influence in Iraq's violence. The shift in rhetoric has coincided with rising violence against US troops, and Iran, for one, accuses the US of changing its tone because it needs a scapegoat for its failure to bring peace.
Four US soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Wednesday. The US military's death toll since the invasion is now 3626, including 47 so far this month.
Yesterday, the US military said two US soldiers had been charged with murdering an Iraqi last month near the northern oil city of Kirkuk. On Wednesday, a military jury in California convicted Marine Corporal Trent Thomas of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder in the killing of an Iraqi man in the village of Hamandiya last year.
Los Angeles Times, Reuters