Fowzi Saad al-Obeidi
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Fowzi Saad al-Obeidi (Arabic: فوزي سعد العبيدي), commonly known as Abu Zubair al-Haili (other aliases include Zouhair Hilal Mohamed Tabiti and Muhammad Salah Sultan), was born in Saudi Arabia and became a senior al-Qaeda recruiter and operational commander. Nicknamed "The Bear" due to his posture and weight (over 150kg). He was often used as a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda justifying the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. He was trained as an intelligence agency (Mukhabarat) officer in Iraq where he fought against the Kurdish people in Northern Iraq. Under the name of Abu Zubair, Lieutenant Saad headed a force of some 120 Arab terrorists backed by about 400 renegade Kurds who were remnants of a defeated separatist group.
His "Supporters of Islam" organization was sent by Saddam Hussein into the portion of northern Iraq under U.S. aerial protection to assassinate the democratic Kurdish leadership and to establish crude chemical warfare facilities in remote villages near the Iranian border in Iraqi Kurdistan's mountainous region (equivalent to Afghanistan's Tora Bora). One fruit of his labor was a form of cyanide cream that kills on contact. A shipment of this rudimentary panic-spreader, produced by what interrogators say is an al-Qaeda-Saddam joint venture, was intercepted in mid-2002 in Turkey on its way to terror cells in the West.
Before the September 11, 2001 attacks he ran some of Osama bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan and planned an abortive attempt to blow up NATO ships in the Mediterranean Sea in March, 2001. He was considered to be among the top 25 al-Qaeda lieutenants of Osama bin Laden and therefore on the American most wanted list. During the U.S.-led war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, he helped evacuate al-Qaeda operatives from the country. He was captured in the first half of June 2002 by the Moroccan authorities. How he came to Morocco is unclear.
Later his name was often mentioned in internet postings written by the terrorist Mohammed Bouyeri who murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh.
Abu Zubair was shot and killed in the northern city of Mosul on August 12, 2005, when he was caught in an ambush set up by Iraqi security forces officials said, confirming a report by Mosul police.
