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RICK SANCHEZ: Another new videotape. This one
allegedly shows the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq and a
claim by Iraqi officials that they're close to
killing or capturing Abu Ayyub al-Masri. But some
major new developments this morning from Baghdad on
this.
And let's bring in our Michael Ware, who's been
following some of the details.
Michael, what do you have for us this morning?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we have
is Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie
has just finished a press conference, where what he's
essentially doing is, this is a counter punch to al
Qaeda in Iraq's own propaganda campaign during this
holy month of Ramadan offensive. We saw a few days
ago al-Masri released an audio statement where he
announces the launching of a military campaign during
Ramadan, part of which he said includes targeting
Westerners, Christians to be kidnapped, and hopefully
traded for the blind Islamic cleric being held in New
York in relation to the World Trade Center bombings.
What we have here is Iraq's national security
adviser. He's akin to Ambassador Negroponte in the
U.S., the head of the national intelligence
directorate. He's saying, "We are hunting al-Masri,
we are close to him." He has promised the Iraqi
people that, "During this holy month, we will have
him for you, either dead or in chains."
He then shows a videotape of al-Masri. It's
essentially a lesson. It's teaching young jihadis how
to put a car bomb together. However, from the banner
that we see in this tape, it's clearly very dated.
The national security adviser says al-Masri is
responsible for as many as 2,000 car bombs here in
Iraq. However, we already knew this.
We already knew that al-Masri was one of the veterans
of this campaign, and had been leading it from almost
the beginning. So the threat that "we are close to
capturing him" -- we heard this time and time again,
which was Zarqawi, the previous leader, and until his
actual death, these were promises unfulfilled.
So this is clearly the national security adviser of
Iraq trying to counter al Qaeda's propaganda campaign
-- Rick.
SANCHEZ: And it goes on and on.
Michael Ware, thanks so much for that comprehensive
report. We certainly appreciate it. Betty, over to
you.