On September 1, 2001, “terrorists in northern Iraq held a ceremony to celebrate the establishment of a new organization. The group was small; the most reliable estimates place its membership at six hundred to seven hundred fighters. But it brought together a number of smaller radical Islamic groups under the auspices of a big one: Jund al Islam.” In December, the group changed its name to Ansar al Islam. “Abu Zubaydah, a senior al Qaeda operative now in U.S. custody, told interrogators that bin Laden had provided start-up money for Jund al Islam. Numerous other al Qaeda detainees have corroborated this account. When U.S. troops stormed the group’s camp days after the first bombs fell in the Iraq War, they found copies of bomb-making manuals and videotapes identical to those found in al Qaeda camps during the war in Afghanistan. The ties to al Qaeda were never in dispute.”
– Stephen F. Hayes, The Connection, Page 158