Al Qaeda's Baghdadi

Nibras Kazmi:

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi made his grand entrance onto the jihadist stage on October 12, 2006, and since then he's delivered two very important speeches — the more recent one came out last week — and has taken credit for much of the spectacular outbreaks of violence in Iraq of late, yet he still can't get his name in print on the pages of the New York Times. Why are the editors and reporters of that paper not telling their readers anything about Iraq's top terrorist?

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi is Al Qaeda's guy in Iraq, and nowadays, the Sunni insurgency is being whittled down to Al Qaeda's activity in Iraq. It's that simple, and he's that important.

So why isn't the Times writing that? I think the answer has something to do with what seems, to my eyes, to be a determined campaign to keep the American people from knowing the nature of the enemy in Iraq because identifying this enemy as Al Qaeda casts the debate about the war in a whole different light.

Here the timeline behind al-Baghdadi's emergence on the scene:

— On October 17, 2004, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi changes the name of his organization, Monotheism and Jihad, to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia after swearing fealty to the mother Al Qaeda organization under Osama bin Laden.

— On January 15, 2006, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia expands its writ by forming an umbrella organization called the Shura Council of the Mujaheddin, whereby Zarqawi cedes the public face of Al Qaeda to an Iraqi figurehead, Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi, but maintains full authority over the new entity.

— On June 7, 2006, Zarqawi is killed, and he's succeeded shortly thereafter by Abu Hamza al-Muhajir.

— On October 12, 2006, Al Qaeda further expands on the Shura Council of the Mujaheddin by forming yet a larger umbrella group, the Islamic State of Iraq. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, not to be confused with the aforementioned Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi, is declared emir, or ruler, of this "state."

— On November 10, 2006, al-Muhajir, speaking as Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia's chief, pledges his allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and to al-Baghdadi as its head, and makes a point of highlighting al-Baghdadi's pedigree: He is of the tribe of Quraish, a usual prerequisite for a would-be caliph.

— On December 22, 2006, Al-Baghdadi gives his first speech, addressing Muslims everywhere. The presenter introduces him as the "Prince of the Faithful"—a title usually reserved for caliphs.

Thus, there is no entity that describes itself as Al Qaeda operating in Iraq anymore. There's only the Islamic State of Iraq. As head of that state, al-Baghdadi is a big deal. And it doesn't stop there, for all the hints being dropped about the caliphate seem to indicate that al-Baghdadi is Al Qaeda's candidate for that job.

But it's not only the anti-war crowd in the press that doesn't want the American people to know that America's soldiers are fighting an Al Qaeda-led insurgency in Iraq....

...

The left wing blogs and anti war Democrats have been asserting al Qaeda has nothing to do with Iraq so long they act like they believe it, all those reports to the contrary notwithstanding. Those who do acknowledge their presence seem to think they will magically disappear when we leave. Magic as strategy can only be found the play book of the willfully ignorant.