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Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s deputy leader, in video. |
CAIRO - Al Qaeda’s deputy leader, in a video released yesterday, paid tribute to a senior militant who was held in US secret prisons and falsely described links between the terrorist group and Iraq.
Ayman al-Zawahri eulogized Ali Mohammed Abdel-Aziz al-Fakheri, a Libyan militant known as Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who reportedly hanged himself with bedsheets in his prison cell in Libya in May, according to a newspaper with ties to Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy’s son.
Libi was captured in Pakistan in 2001 and later sent to Egypt under the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program, where he was reportedly tortured and then handed over to Libya.
In the video, Zawahri accused President Obama of killing Libi and demanded that the United States “apologize and pay financial and moral compensation’’ for those detained in secret prisons.
Under interrogation in Egypt, Libi said Iraq, then still ruled by Saddam Hussein, had agreed to provide Al Qaeda with training in chemical and biological weapons, according to a 2006 Senate intelligence report.
Reports concluded that information on Iraqi links with Al Qaeda was not credible. But it had already been used by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell in his February 2003 UN speech laying out US reasons for the planned invasion of Iraq.
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