In an audio recording released on May 20, 2010 that the recently slain leaders of the group's offshoot in Iraq Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. It was the first message broadcast since December. Al-Zawahiri likened the slain leaders to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born militant who created the group and was killed in a 2006 U.S. airstrike, crediting them with reviving jihad, or holy war, in Iraq.[43]