On December 22nd, 2010, the “Al-Sharq Al-Awsat” newspaper reported that,
according to the Al-Marsad Al-I’lami Al-Islami website (Islamic Informative
Observatory), Mahmud Abu Rida, whose alias is Abu Rasmi Al-Filastini, was
recently killed during an American air strike in Afghanistan.
Abu Rida moved to Britain in 1995. Following the 9/11 attacks, he was
of incarceration, he left for Syria and thereafter to Egypt and Gaza. He then
returned to Syria and from there moved to Iran, where he was again
arrested. After his release, he left for Afghanistan, where he was killed.
The article quoted from Jihadi websites, which claim Abu Rida had strong ties
to Al-Qaeda’s no. 2 man, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, as well as to the leader of Al-
Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

While residing in Britain, Abu Rida was interviewed twice by the “Al-Sharq Al-
Awsat” newspaper. In these interviews, he stated that he had helped the
Afghans by opening a school in Afghanistan. According to a letter sent from
Al-Zawahiri to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi in 2005, Zawahiri’s book “Knights
under the Prophet’s Banner” was sent to Abu Rida for distribution.
In 2001, Abu Rida was arrested in Britain. The British immigration officials
claimed he was supporting international terror groups, including Al-Qaeda.
The main accusations against him were that he had collected money and
distributed it among the Al-Qaeda networks and that he had obtained forged
documents in order to aid volunteers seeking to train in Afghanistan.
According to the article, Abu Rida suffered from mental problems including
depression.

http://www.ict.org.il/Portals/0/Internet%20Monitoring%20Group/JWMG_Arab_Media_Sources_December_2010_2.pdf

This is the reference to “Abu Ramsi” in al-Zawahiri’s letter:

“I don’t know if you all have contact with Abu Rasmi? Even if it is via the Internet, because I gave him a copy of my book (A Knight under the banner of the Prophet@) so he could attempt to publish it, and I lost the original. Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper published it truncated and jumbled. I think that the American intelligence services provided the aforementioned newspaper with it from my computer which they acquired, because the publication of the book coincided with a publication of messages from my computer in the same newspaper. So if you can contact him and get the original of the book, if that is possible for you all, then you can publish it on your blessed website and then send a copy to us, if that is possible.”

http://www.ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/CTC-Zawahiri-Letter-10-05.pdf

Oh, by the way I love reading your blog and it is refreshing to hear your point of view.