Al-Qaida leaders, associates

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Hamza Rabia

Age: late 30’s

Citizenship: Egyptian

Aliases:

Personal: Very little is publicly known about him other than his nationality and age. He is believed to have been the No. 2 to Abu Faraj al-Libbi before he was captured. Also, has the confidence of Ayman al Zawahiri. A top 5 al Qaeda official.

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Mustafa Setmariam Nasar

Age: 45

Citizenship: Syrian and Spanish

Aliases: Abu Musab al-Suri, Abu al Abad

Personal: A rising leader in al Qaeda who has been variously described as the European head of al Qaeda or the man providing the religious and intellectual underpinning for Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s terrorist operations in Iraq…described by US intelligence as a “pen jihadist”.

He may have had a role in two of the biggest and boldest al Qaeda attacks, the September 11 attacks in the US and the Madrid train bombings in Spain. In July 2001, his lieutenant, Amer Azizi, met with 9-11 cell leaders Mohammed Atta and Ramzi Binalshib in Tarragona, Spain, and in December 2003, activated the Madrid cell that carried out the Madrid bombings. In September 2003, Nasar was among 35 people named in an indictment handed down by Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzon for terrorist activities connected to al Qaeda. In the indictment, Garzon said Nasar was a leading member of al-Qaeda who first came into contact with bin Laden in 1988 in Afghanistan. Garzon had not traced Nasar's movements completely, but said he either taught at or ran terrorist training camps in Afghanistan in the early 1990s and again beginning in 1998.

Nasar has a long history of writing about politics and is a Koranic expert who has traveled widely in Europe and boasts a large following in the radical Islamic underworld, according to a profile in the National Review. While living in London, he was one of the editors of the Al Ansar magazine, which for years published propaganda from dozens of Islamic terrorist groups. On one instance, Al Ansar published a fatwah that justified the killing of children and women in Algeria by the Algerian terrorist group GIA, according to the National Review.

Nasar is a veteran of the Afghan war against the Soviet Union, staying on in Afghanistan after that war’s conclusion but maintaining close connections to Bin Laden who he visited in Khartoum during the al Qaeda leader’s stay there.

The US recently put a $5 million reward on his head in the belief he is operating out of Iraq. A rival of Zarqawi’s within al Qaeda. Married to a Spanish national, Elena Moreno, and is the father of two children. His current whereabouts are unknown.

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ADVISORS:

Imad Fayez Mugniyah

Citizenship: Lebanese

Aliases: Emad Mugniyeh, Jawad Nouredine

Personal: Mugniyah is the alleged head of the security apparatus. for the terrorist organization, Lebanese Hizballah. He is thought to be in Lebanon. The man responsible for the deaths of more than 300 Americans during the 1980’s, including those lost in the Beirut embassy bombings, the Beirut Marine Barracks bombing and the killings of Beirut CIA Station Chief William Buckley and LTC William Higgins. Mugniyah is reported to have participated in Buckley’s torture prior to his being killed and Higgins’ being hanged. Many in the CIA and Special Ops communities see him as significant as Bin Laden.

The U.S. has established a reward of $5 million for information leading to his capture.

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CONTINUED

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