Al Sahab To Issue New Video in Honor of ‘Al Qaeda Militant’

A new video commemorating a suspected al Qaeda militant who was killed by British forces in Iraq in September will soon be posted on the Internet. Al Sahab, al Qaeda’s self-proclaimed media production company, is advertising the video, which will include a statement by suspected al Qaeda figure Abu Yahya al Libi in honor of Omar al Faruq. Both al Faruq and al Libi escaped from a U.S. prison in Bagram, Afghanistan, in July 2005 with two other suspects. All four fugitives later appeared in a video aired on al Arabiya TV in which they claimed to have been tortured at the prison and vowed to continue fighting the U.S. THE BLOTTER RECOMMENDS Escaped Top Al Qaeda Leader Killed in Iraq Video The Great Escape: Omar al Faruq and Three Others Escape from a U.S. Air Base Click Here to Ask Brian Ross a Question The Department of Defense has maintained that torture has never been permitted by the U.S. military. Faruq is believed to have been the link between al Qaeda and Southeast Asia’s militant Islamist group al Jemaah al Islamiyah. He had been arrested in Indonesia in 2002 before he was handed over to the U.S. Al Libi appeared in a number of videos himself, most recently in an interview also produced by al Sahab and posted on the Internet in September and another video aired by al Arabiya in October. It has become a common practice for al Sahab to advertise upcoming videos before their release. The videos are usually posted on the Internet around two days after the announcement.