The US military presented the new face of al-Qaeda in Iraq, displaying a photograph of a bearded man in a traditional white Arab headdress and saying he was taking over after the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The new leader is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Afghanistan-trained explosives expert with links to Osama bin Laden's top deputy, Major General William Caldwell said on Thursday.
He also is the man behind a nom de guerre made public by al-Qaeda in Iraq after al-Zarqawi was killed last week in a US airstrike on his safe house outside of Baghdad, the military spokesman said.
However, US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said it is not certain that al-Masri is al-Zarqawi's successor.
"That's clearly one of the leading names, but we're going to need a little bit of time to sort out -- and they're clearly needing a little time -- to sort out where they go after what is clearly a big blow to al-Qaeda," Hadley said at the White House.
Caldwell said al-Masri was the man identified in an Internet posting by al-Qaeda that said Abu Hamza al-Muhajer was al-Zarqawi's successor. The name al-Muhajer means "emigrant" in Arabic and suggested he was not an Iraqi.
According to the US military, al-Masri was a founding member of al-Qaeda in Iraq. After meeting the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi in Afghanistan, he followed him to Iraq to help set up the terror cell in 2003.
Even before the terror leader's death, the Bush administration posted a US$200,000 bounty on al-Masri because of his level of leadership within al-Qaeda, Caldwell said.
Citing recently declassified documents, he said al-Masri has been a terrorist since 1982, "beginning with his involvement in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad," which was led by Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's top deputy.
Going by that chronology, the photograph the military presented -- showing a young man with a sparse mustache and a trimmed goatee -- appeared to be at least several years old.
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