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An undated file photo released by the U.S. military of Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, in Baghdad June 15, 2006. U.S. intelligence cannot confirm that al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Hamza al-Muhajir is the man whose voice appeared this week in an audio message urging the kidnapping of Westerners, officials said on Friday. EDITORIAL USE ONLY REUTERS/U.S. (EDITORIAL USE ONLY REUTERS/U.S. Army/Handout) |
U.S. unable to confirm Muhajir in Qaeda Iraq audio
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence cannot confirm that al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Hamza al-Muhajir is the man whose voice appeared this week in an audio message urging the kidnapping of Westerners, officials said on Friday.
But a technical analysis of the Internet message shows the voice to belong to the same man identified as Muhajir in a September 7 audio recording from al Qaeda in Iraq, officials said.
"The voice matches the previous tape," said a counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter involves classified information.
Muhajir, an Egyptian who is also known as Abu Ayub al-Masri, assumed the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq after the death of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June.
The task of confirming his voice on the recordings has proved elusive for intelligence analysts because there is so little material available for comparison, officials said.
More prominent al Qaeda figures such as Osama bin Laden's second-in-command Ayman al Zawahri have issued numerous messages including videotapes that allow for quick face and voice identification.
"With him (Zawahri) we've got videos, we've got the voice and we've got multiple samples, and they all match," the counterterrorism official said.
Zawahri issued a new videotape message on Friday that condemned Pope Benedict as a "charlatan" and President George W. Bush as "lying failure."
Al Qaeda in Iraq this month has released two audio messages, and a videotape said to show a masked Muhajir, in what U.S. officials describe as a propaganda effort to show the militant network as a leading force in the Iraq insurgency.
On Thursday, a man identified as Muhajir called for the kidnapping of Westerners to swap for jailed Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted over a decade ago of conspiracy to carry out attacks on U.S. targets including the 1993 bombing of New York's World Trade Center.
The earlier audio recording urged al Qaeda's followers to kill Americans -- a factor that U.S. commanders in Iraq believe contributed to a rise in attacks on American forces.
The video, posted last Saturday, depicted a masked Muhajir reading a statement before the killing of a Turkish hostage.
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