By Randa Habib

AMMAN, Nov 19, 2010 (AFP) - Jordanian Anwar Yusuf Abu Sharbi is no longer in any doubt about the "martyrdom" of his son in Iraq, which he first heard of months ago. He says Al-Qaeda has confirmed it.

Way back in July, his daughter-in-law received an anonymous text message saying her husband, 28-year-old computer programmer Yusuf Abu Sharbi, had died in the war-torn neighbouring country, but Anwar wasn't sure.

"The message spoke of his martyrdom and that of his comrades, but did not give any details," the 50-something refinery worker told AFP. "We did not know how he died, or where he died; we were not totally sure."

That same day, Anwar said Jordanian intelligence agents questioned him. They demanded that he hand over Yusuf's "will" -- frequently left by insurgents who expect to die -- and forbade him from receiving any public condolences.

Anwar's last shred of doubt was removed on Thursday, when Al-Qaeda announced that his son was among four Jordanians killed in a battle in Iraq.

The Islamic State of Iraq, the Al-Qaeda front group, named the others as Abdel Karim Taha Samarra, also known as Abu Abdulrahman; Alaa Ibrahim Ahmed Mohammed, who went by the alias Abu Mohammed; and Mussa Khudayr Mussa Ramadan, or Abu Hamza.

"We are happy to announce to the nation of Islam the martyrdom of four of our mujahedeen sons from the Islamic State of Iraq who were from Jordan, who were killed in a battle with the Americans," said a statement posted on the Honein jihadist forum.

"They killed a number of the crusaders (a term used for US troops); no one knows how many -- only God."

In Baghdad, the US military said it had no confirmation of any such event when asked if it had information regarding the four.

According to independent website icasualties.org, the only American soldier to die as a result of hostile action in July was Lieutenant Michael Runyan, who was killed as the result of a roadside bomb and hostile fire near the town of Muqdadiyah in Iraq's central Diyala province.

Brigadier General Jeffrey Buchanan, spokesman for US forces in Iraq, said any insurgents killed in clashes with American troops are typically identified before being handed over to Iraqi authorities for burial.

"If it's a warranted guy, counter-terrorism operation, they generally take him back to get a positive identification and then turn him over to the Iraqi forces," he told AFP.

While Anwar might have been unsure about his son's fate, he had every reason to believe he was facing death in Iraq.

He says that when Jordanian intelligence questioned him in July, "I thought at the time my son was tied to Al-Qaeda."

He says Yusuf had been held by police after visiting the family home of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in their mutual hometown of Zarqa, north of Amman, to offer his condolences.

Zarqawi, a former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, was killed by a US air strike on June 7, 2006, the same year Yusuf completed a computer programming course at Al-Beit University in Mafrak, northeast Jordan.

And in 2008, Yusuf was jailed for 28 months after trying to join the insurgency in Iraq. Shortly after his release, he and Mussa Ramadan, in whose Zarqa computer store he worked, succeeded in crossing the border into Iraq.

Mussa Ramadan had been arrested in Syria in September 2005 and was handed over to Jordanian authorities who sentenced him in 2006 to four years for planning attacks against American soldiers in Jordan.

Anwar recalls the contents of Yusuf's farewell letter.

"It was two pages long. He said he would end up in heaven, and asked me to put my faith in God, provide a religious education for his brother and two sisters and ban television from the house.

"He began to become very religious (at university) and I am sure he met people who influenced him this way," said Anwar.

"It seems he wanted to die as a martyr. It's done."

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Copyright AFP 2010.