When al Qaeda in Iraq’s military chief Abu Ayyub al Masri was killed earlier this month, I noted that the CIA had tracked him to Baghdad in May 2002. Al Masri was a longtime lieutenant for al Qaeda’s #2 Ayman al Zawahiri. After the Taliban’s Afghanistan fell in late 2001, al Masri was one of a contingent of al Qaeda operatives who moved to Baghdad. From there, they recruited men to train in al Qaeda’s camps in northeastern Iraq and were suspected of plotting terrorist attacks outside of Iraq.  We know this because former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet explains the CIA’s intelligence on al Masri in his book At the Center of the Storm.