| GEO World | | Al-Qaeda's No. 2 praises slain group leaders | Updated at: 0546 PST, Tuesday, May 25, 2010
WASHINGTON: Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, praised two Al-Qaeda leaders killed in a shootout last month and offered condolences for their deaths, in video clip released Monday by the US-based SITE Intelligence Group.
In a 27-minute message titled, "Eulogy for the Two Commanders," Ayman al-Zawahiri praised the two Al-Qaeda In Iraq (AQI) leaders "for their character and their actions in jihad (holy war)," SITE said, and vilified those who they fought against.
The message closed with images of attacks carried out by AQI, the al-Qaeda front in Iraq which Zawahiri in his message calls the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayub al-Masri, who had direct links with Osama bin Laden, were killed in a shootout when a joint Iraqi-US force raided their safehouse north of Baghdad on April 18.
Baghdadi was the political leader of AQI while Masri, an Egyptian militant, was the insurgent group's self-styled "minister of war."
AQI had confirmed their deaths on April 24.
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