According to General Bergner, Mr. Mashadani is the most senior Iraqi operative in Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. According to some reports, he served in Saddam Hussein’s Special Republican Guard and later became an insurgent with the group Ansar Al Sunna. About two and a half years ago, Mr. Mashadani joined Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, where he served as the Media Emir, or publicity director, the general said.

General Bergner said that Mr. Mashadani was also an intermediary between Mr. Masri in Iraq and Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri, whom the Bush administration says are remotely supporting and guiding Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Critics of the administration have accused it of exaggerating the relationship between the groups, however.

An important part of the American strategy against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has been to drive wedges between the group, other insurgent groups and the Sunni population, and General Bergner’s briefing continued that theme.

“Mashadani confirms that al-Masri and the foreign leaders with whom he surrounds himself, not Iraqis, made the operational decisions,” General Bergner said.

As proof that Mr. Mashadani had been captured, the military displayed a picture of him and an identification card the general described as the false ID he was found with.

Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has fired its own shots in the publicity war. Videos have been issued under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq that were said to show a bomb attack in Diyala on an American Bradley armored vehicle and an assault on an Iraqi military checkpoint.

In one recent statement, the Islamic State of Iraq made light of the American code name for its offensive in Baquba, Arrowhead Ripper, by saying that “the arrows have been returned to the enemy like boomerangs,” according to the SITE Institute, a United States group that monitors international terrorist groups.