A video was posted Thursday on the Web that graphically shows members of a well-known and highly organized Islamic insurgent group preparing and launching four rockets loaded with chemicals at a U.S. military base near Samarra, Iraq.
The video, which is posted on several Islamic Web sites, appears to show the attack being carried out by members of the self-proclaimed Salahaldin Al-Ayoubi Brigades, the military wing of Al Jabha Al-Islamiyya l'il-Muqawama Al-'Iraqiyya (JAMI), which has carried out numerous bombing and rocket attacks against U.S. military installations, including a mortar attack last October 10 that destroyed a major military ammunitions dump and lit up the sky on the outskirts of Baghdad.
The new video show members of the militant group wearing gas masks while filling the rockets with a black chemical. The rockets then are loaded into launchers, taken into the field and fired.
A translation of graphics on the video indicates the attack took place on Tuesday. Several Islamic interest Web sites that point to the video concur that the accompanying text and audio identify the U.S. military base in Samarra, in the heart of Sunni Iraq, as the intended target.
The Salahaldin Al-Ayoubi Brigades also is part of the umbrella group Islamic Front of Iraqi Resistance. Their Web site is well known for posting videos of attacks U.S. military installations and troop and supply convoys.
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