Will the Real Number 5 in Al-Qaeda Please Stand Up

Given the Pakistani governments tendency to overstate their contribution I thought it might be useful to clearly identify the likely number 5 man in Al-Qaeda. There are two possibilities:

First, it could be Saif Al-Adel's assistant/deputy. Al-Adel who has been the sheik over the military committee on Al-Qaeda’s Shura Council i.e. a position comparable to the Secretary of Defense in the American Government, since the capture of KSM in 2003. However I would and have argue that given the relationship between Al-Adel and Al-Zarqawi in addition to the fact that Zarqawi's areas of responsibility within Al-Qaeda are more than just Iraq (Head of the Abu Hafs Al-Masri Brigades which handles North American and European operations, Oversees the operational side of Al-Qaeda WMD program, etc.) that Zarqawi himself is in fact the Deputy military commander of Al-Qaeda which would place him 4^th in the Al-Qaeda military command structure.

Second, would therefore most likely be Zarqawi's own deputy in Iraq. Given the importance of that area of operations, and also the likelihood in my opinion that Zarqawi has long since left Iraq for either Syria or Iran after his close call with American troops back in April this would likely be held by a very high ranking member of Al-Qaeda. So who is Zarqawi’s deputy?

Number 5 - Abu Abdelrahman al-Iraqi a.k.a Abu Abdel Rahman al-Najdi - His actual name is Hassan Al-Suraihi and he was born in Saudi Arabia where he also served at some time as the Imam of Shaykh Abdelaziz Bin Baz's mosque in the Al-Shashah neighborhood of Mecca. Al-Suraihi is a veteran Arab-Afghan fighting where he meet and worked with Usama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. He is even rumored to have been present at the birth of Al-Qaeda. Al-Suraihi was reportedly captured by the Pakistan government in 1994 and released after being tortured. Later it is said that he served a number of years in a Saudi jail for an undisclosed number of "state security violations." Among these is his possible involvement in the attack on the Saudi National Guard Barracks in 1995. He is also believed to have worked for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and American forces circulated a wanted poster of him in Afghanistan in early 2003.

Interestingly there is a report that he was among hundreds of Al-Qaeda members who was captured entering Iran after the beginning of operation enduring freedom and that he was even handed over the Saudi government in early 2002 only to be released by Prince Naif the interior minister in August 2002.

Under his name of al-Najdi, which was likely his original Al-Qaeda name which is always a reference ones nation of origin and was likely changed to Al-Iraqi to give him some local credibility in his operations in Iraq, he claimed credit on behalf of Al-Qaeda for the August 2003 attack on the UN compound. In the audio tape broadcast on Al-Arabiya TV on the 18^th and also called for Muslims to come to Iraq and attack the United States. At that time he was identified by the US State Department as a financer and propagandist.

Currently Al-Suraihi is al-Zarqawi Deputy in Iraq, and given his personal relationship to Bin Laden KSM and Zarqawi makes him likely the number 5 man in the organization after Bin Laden, Zawahiri, Al-Adel, and Zarqawi.