Major Egyptian terrorist captured in Iraq?

According to the ministry of defense:

BAGHDAD - The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was arrested in the northern city of Mosul, the Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman said Thursday.

We should probably wait for DNA based on the last great capture story. But while we wait for the unknown let's ponder some knowns.

Egyptian Al-Masri, who was allegedly aligned with Jordanian Musab al-Zarqawi, were both somehow part of a "civil war" in Iraq through their bombing of the Golden Mosque. As Allahpundit alludes, Masri was supposedly an associate of Zawahiri's as well. And don't forget Mohammed Atta was also an Egyptian. For some reason the left doesn't treat them the same as they do Saudi Arabia. Throw in the late Abu Maysara, AQI's former IT geek, who was from Syria and the civil war was truly a multi-national affair!

And who could forget the predator raid in January 2006 that took out Midhat Mursi, aka Abu Khabab al-Masri (there's that nom de guerre again) who was, you guessed it--another Egyptian:

What we know about the person who ran al Qaeda's chemical and biological program -- basically chemical, they dreamed about biological, but basically chemical..

That sirname should be familiar:

Abu Hafs al Masri was the nom de guerre of Muhammad Atef, a former Egyptian police officer and chief lieutenant to bin Laden. A founding member of al-Qaeda, he was killed in the US bombing of Afghanistan in 2001.

Lots of Masri's floating around out there.

Finally, the recent Joint Forces Command report mentioned that Saddam previously had ties with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad back when Zawahiri was running it. And let's square this circle once and for all--these guys were all sympatico with al-Zarqawi, who reportedly had ties with Izzat al-Duri, Saddam's former right hand man who recently uncaptured himself. Seems if the Saddam-al Qaeda connection ever existed it might have passed through Cairo.

UPDATE 5/9/08

MNF is saying no. OK, it's possible some Iraqi field commander didn't get the memo on how they wanted to handle this guy, disinformation-wise. Aside from that it certainly suggests the Iraqi Army isn't quite ready to go yet.