Update on al-Masri's most recent death

As noted earlier, Abu Ayyub al-Masri -- alleged to be the Zarqawi's replacement as the Al Qaeda leader in Iraq -- has been reported dead. ABC News carried a brief news banner about this "death" being part of a deliberate misinformation campaign. So far, ABC has not compiled an actual story to go along with that headline. Neither have they explained the banner.

My previous post (scroll down) was a bit mistaken, or incomplete. I wrote that al-Masri had died once before in October of 2006. This report depends on his identification with a terrorist figure called Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. Some believe that the two men are not one and the same, although the United States military says that they are. Also,

In another discrepancy, some Iraqi media reported that al-Masri was killed a week ago, not on Tuesday.

Supposedly, al-Masri was killed by "the Sunni resistance," even though he is (or was) himself vehemently anti-Shi'ite. The body has not been recovered and the killing took place in an area controlled by insurgents; thus, the only evidence for his demise comes from his fellow Sunni fighters.

By my count, al-Masri has had three deaths so far, which means that he has much work to do if he wants to catch up with Zarqawi's record. Note that after his final "death," Z-man's wife said that "al-Qaida's top leadership reached a deal with U.S. intelligence because al-Zarqawi had become too powerful." Before that, the Washington Post revealed the existence of a Pentagon slide show which outlined plans to create a Zarqawi myth. At least one Zarqawi letter, leaked to the New York Times and to William Safire has been shown to be a fake (even though Bush cited it as genuine); Safire and the NYT gave completely different "origin stories" for this missive.

How do these evildoers manage so many resurrections? Cannonfire correspondent Gil Kane files this exclusive report: