One possibility

Did one of the intelligence threads that led to the Jan 13 attack in Damodala that killed 5 senior Al Qaeda commanders originate in Iraq?

The attack was apparently aimed at Al Qaeda #2 Zawahiri, who was not present in Damodala at the time, but the attack did inflict a serious blow on the Al Qaeda command structure.

Among those killed was Abdul al-Maghribi. He was Zawahiri's son-in-law, and a senior Al Qaeda official in charge of propaganda/public relations.

Fred Burton, writing for Stratfor, surmised that perhaps al-Maghribi was the link that provided the key intelligence that led to the attack.

Though there is much that can only be speculated about what such a committee might be drawn together to discuss, it is clear that they did not die in a freak accident involving a passing Predator. U.S. intelligence obviously was aware that a meeting was under way, and in all likelihood that information came from a human intelligence (humint) source who was able, somehow, to guarantee the presence of high-value targets (HVTs) in the village.

If we had to guess where the link was, our money would be on al-Maghribi. As al-Zawahiri's son-in-law, he would be in communication with al Qaeda's top leadership and, as a trusted family member, likely would be able to speak on their behalf as a delegate to wider circles. But his role in media relations is equally interesting: Al-Maghribi is believed to have played a part in distributing statements, CDs and videos featuring al Qaeda leaders, and to have maintained contacts with some Arab journalists. The leadership's need for publicity, along with these outside contacts, may have created an opening that U.S. intelligence exploited in efforts to track down bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. If there was a humint source involved in orchestrating the Pakistan strike, it probably was someone who kept their eyes on al-Maghribi. Find al-Maghribi, and he eventually might lead you back to al-Zawahiri.

It was probably al-Maghribi's presence, more than the other three, that drew the rain of missiles down, with U.S. intelligence believing al-Zawahiri would be nearby.

If true, how did U.S. intelligence first get on to al-Maghribi?

Here is one possibility.

You may recall I had several posts in the last months of 2005 detailing some key successes that Coalition Forces achieved in taking down key propaganda officials in Iraq. The arrests seemed to come in a chain, with one arrest of a propaganda official or terrorist leading to another.

Complete details and reasoning are contained in the following posts. I can't reproduce them all here.

* Fighting the real propagandists (12-28)
* Shooting the Messengers (11-25)
* Links in the chain (11-20)
* Dominos (10-20)
* The log keeps rolling (10-17)

To summarize these posts, here are the terrorists involved:

(Note: AQI = Al Qaeda in Iraq)

Name	Role
Abu Khalil	exec. assistant and banker to Abu Assam
Abu Assam	#2 AQI official
Abu Dijana	senior AQI propaganda cell leader
Yasir Ibrahim	top financier to Iraqi insurgency
Abu Hassen	senior AQI propaganda cell leader in Baghdad
Abu Ibrahim	supplied equipment to Abu Hassen
Abu Shihab	a senior propaganda chief in Baghdad
Abu Naba	chief propagandist in Mosul

The chain of events seems to be this.

The capture of Abu Khalil leads to the death of Abu Assam, the capture of Abu Dijana, and the capture of Yasir Ibrahim.

The capture of Yasir Ibrahim leads to the capture of Abu Hassen and Abu Shihab.

The capture of Abu Hassen leads to the capture of Abu Ibrahim.

The capture of Abu Shihab leads to the capture of Abu Naba.

Now, how does all this relate to al-Maghribi and Damadola? Here is where we can only speculate.

The intelligence successes in Iraq involved some very senior officials, though. They included some senior money men, who would have knowledge of key operations, and some senior propaganda officials.

Since al-Maghribi was a senior propaganda official, he could have had reason to interact with some of these officials in Iraq. Contrary to what you might hear from a casual reading of the mainstream media, Al Qaeda is very much interested in Iraq, and al-Maghribi would have had a keen interest in propaganda operations in Iraq.

Also, this article (HT: Thomas Joscelyn) from Der Spiegel says the following:

He [al-Maghribi] is believed to have helped equip al-Qaida with modern computer technology and given it a high level of expertise in using the Internet, enabling the group to spread its message across the Web without being tracked by intelligence agencies.

al-Maghribi might have been in contact with someone like Abu Ibrahim, who supplied computer equipment to propganda cells in Iraq.

I haven't been able to find much on al-Maghribi's movements and locations in the latter part of 2005. I don't know if he was physically in Iraq at that time. Or, I don't know if he would've kept in contact with these officials with couriers or electronic means.

It is a possibility, though, that some of these Iraqi terrorists mentioned above knew where or how al-Maghribi could be found, told their interrogators, and got U.S. intelligence started on an operation that led to the severe blow dealt to Al Qaeda on January 13.