The al-Qa'ida affiliated “Islamic State of Iraq” named a “cabinet” for its self-proclaimed Islamic state in a video released online on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, the group released a separate video showing the executions of men it claims were employees of the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

A man identified only as the spokesperson of the group named the "ministers" in the video.

The video appeared in online forums known to carry Islamic State of Iraq communications, and bears the hallmarks of its propaganda.

As reported earlier on the SITE Institute, the ministers include the following names, serving under the leadership of the group’s so-called emir, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi.

Sheikh Abu Abdul Rahman al-Falahi as First Minister for the Emir of the Believers

Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, Minister of War

Professor Sheikh Abu Uthman al-Tamimi, Minster of Shari’ah Affairs

Professor Abu Bakr al-Jabouri, Minister of Public Relations

Professor Abu Abdul Jabar al-Janabi, Minister of Security

Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Mashadani, Minister of Information

Professor Abu Khadr al-Eissawi, Minister of Martyrs and Prisoners Affairs

Engineer Abu Ahmed al-Janabi, Minister of Oil

Professor Mustafa al-A’araji, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries

Professor Dr. Abu Abdullah al-Zabadi, Minister of Health

All of the names appear to be pseudonyms. The man identified as the new “war minister,” Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, is also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian who apparently took over al-Qa'ida in Iraq after the assassination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi a year ago.

There has been some speculation online about the mens' tribal names. Slogger sources in Iraq warn against reading too much into the given tribal names. Both major and less major Sunni tribes are represented in the list, and many Iraqis have joined al-Qa'ida-affiliated organizations against the leadership of their tribes.

In the video, the spokesman names the group as Iraq’s “first Islamic administration,” established “decades” after the fall of the Islamic caliphate, after which, he says, Iraq was ruled by “crusaders” for “decades,” and then by “apostates, from the nationalists, the secularists, and the communists, and the acrid Ba'thists”

Most likely, the spokesperson is referring to the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War as the “fall of the Islamic caliphate.” The Ottoman sultan claimed the title of known as caliph, the “successor” to the prophet Mohammad according to the Sunni tradition, who is the nominal leader of the Islamic community. When Turkish nationalists led by Mustafa Ataturk took over the rump Ottoman Empire, the caliphate was all but abolished.

The claim that Iraq was ruled by “crusaders” for “decades” likely refers to the period of British mandate rule and perhaps the Hashemite monarchy. What is now Iraq was captured by Allied forces in World War I, and the British installed the Hashemite monarchy in Baghdad in 1921. The British maintained a formal mandate over Iraq until the early 1930s and kept a military presence in the country until the late 1950s.

As for the by “apostates, from the nationalists, the secularists, and the communists, and the acrid Ba'thists,” the monarchy was overthrown by a military coup in 1958. The Ba'th party took power in another coup in 1968. Predominant ideologies during this period included Arab nationalism, anti-imperialism, and socialism. The Iraqi Communist Party was a powerful force in Iraqi politics until it was crushed under the Ba'thist regime.

Executions

Earlier in the day, the al-Qa'ida affiliated Islamic State of Iraq had released a separate video, bearing the same hallmarks, showing the execution of 20 men, claimed in the video to be employees of the Iraqi ministries of defense and

The group had earlier released a video communique threatening to kill the men in 48 hours if its demands were not met.

Its demands, as expressed in the video, were that the Iraqi Interior Ministry release all Sunni Muslim women prisoners, and that the government submit to the Islamic State of Iraq the men “suspected” of raping Sabrin al-Janabi, and that the government also hand “all the suspects who undertook killing and forced displacement (tashrid) of our (Sunni) people in Tal'afar, and those who participated in the rape of our sisters there.”

The video then says, through scrolling text and a voiceover, that the government has not responded to these demands, and, after showing the some of the men apparently identifying themselves, then cuts to the prisoners kneeling in a line, blindfolded and bound.

A man apparently affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq travels down the row, firing his pistol into the back of each prisoner’s head, killing them all.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry has denied that twenty of its police and soldiers were kidnapped. On Thursday, Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said "We checked with our commands then and all the troops were accounted for," according to the Associated Press.

"They are immoral criminals. They have used all criminal methods and we don't rule out that they executed civilians who they dressed in military uniforms."