Captured Al-Qaeda Document Reveals Egyptian Born Leader's Status

There has been a great deal of mystery surrounding Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Egyptian born successor, known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri. Upon his ascension to his former leader's position, he promised he would continue the same terror tactics that had been started by the Jordanian born terrorist, and at first attempted to act good on this by filming both beheadings and other brutal executions. However, it quickly became apparent that both the charisma and simple ferocity that were inherent in Zarqawi were simply not present in this new leader, and the same level of violence carried out before were simply not sustainable under the new leadership.

It has been suggested that the weakness of al-Masri is what helped directly lead to the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), which took al-Qaeda in Iraq out of the "central focus" as the leading foreign militant group in the country.

All this mystery quickly brought about a variety of rumors as well. When the Sunni sheiks of the Anbar Province revolted against the ISI, among the first steps taken by the Awakening Councils, as they called themselves, was an attempt to prove their loyalty in claiming that they had killed al-Masri. This story had changed several times before finally being debunked by the American military, who stated that they simply don't know the status of the terrorist leader, who makes few videos and appears paranoid about revealing his location.

This is not entirely illogical, as a showboating video created by al-Zarqawi that showed his firing a gun off in the desert was, according to military sources, what led directly to his death in Baqouba.

Several questions appear to have been answered by the recent acquisition of a document by Coalition forces in a raid against al-Qaeda forces, which addresses the Egyptian born militant directly, appealing to him with a plan to shift the ISI's tactics.