Fighting the real propagandists

I'm getting caught up with things again. On Dec 23, CentCom and MNF-Iraq released this news:

An Ansar al-Sunna of Mosul Media Emir and Administrator were captured by Coalition Forces during raids on suspected terrorist safe houses near Mosul.

Muhammad 'Amir Husayn Mar'I al-Sufi, known as Abu Naba, was an Ansar al-Sunna media emir in Mosul and 'Adnan 'Abd-al-Wahab 'Abdallah Mahmud al-Badrani, known as Abu Hudayfah, an Ansar al-Sunna administrator, were captured Nov. 23 and Dec. 5, 2005 respectively.

Abu Naba was responsible for disseminating propaganda - in this capacity, he produced propaganda fliers and compact disks focusing on military operations, anti-voting messages, Jihad messages and prayers.

He also facilitated videos of attacks on Iraqi and Coalition Forces to be posted to the Internet. He purchased cameras for terrorists to film violent acts including bombings, kidnappings and executions. Abu Naba helped produce the final video products and delivered the videos to other Ansar al-Sunna leaders for posting on the Internet.

Based on information Abu Naba and other detained terrorists provided to Coalition Forces, Abu Hudayfah, allegedly in charge of logistics and support for Ansar al-Sunna of Mosul was also identified and captured.

I've written before about the success Coalition Forces have had in apprehending or killing key members of terrorist organizations. This news may be related to these previous operations.

Note that Abu Naba was captured Nov 23, though this news wasn't released until last week. Abu Naba was the chief propagandist in Mosul.

(Note to the MSM, what the bad guys are doing is true propaganda. What the good guys are doing is trying to counteract and balance out what the bad guys are doing. With a little perspective, you might not be so quick to imply you are equating the two.)

This capture came only a day before the announcement of the capture of another propagandist, Abu Shihab, who was captured Oct 23. (I wrote about it here.)

Abu Shihab was with Jaysh al-Mujahideen, one of the jihadi groups in Iraq. Abu Naba was with Ansar al-Sunna, another jihadi group. I am not familiar with how closely these two groups work together. (Bill Roggio calls Ansar al-Sunna "an ally of al-Qaeda in Iraq".)

However, this report from the Jamestown Foundation says they both came out of formations of the former Republican Guard.

As that aforementioned announcement said:

The Jaysh al-Mujahideen terrorist organization, which is centrally controlled in Baghdad, also has terrorist cells in major cities in Iraq, to include Mosul, Fallujah, Ramadi; Jaysh al-Mujahideen is associated with al Qaeda in Iraq.

It is certainly possible a top propagandist in Baghdad would know the chief propagandist in Mosul from a brother organization.

It is possible the capture of Abu Shihab led to the capture of Abu Naba, and news of the capture was released a day after the capture of Abu Naba because the usefulness of keeping Abu Shihab's apprehension quiet was at an end.

The recent announcement said the capture of Abu Naba led directly to the capture of Abu Hudayfah. This is why such captures are kept quiet for seemingly long periods of time, so the information the bad guys possess can be exploited.