Information recovered from dead and captured fighters indicate they belonged to a renegade Shi'ite group which called themselves the Soldiers of Heaven ("Jund al-Samaa") and have been described as an apocalyptic religious cult. The cult leader, Ahmed Ismail Katte, who claimed to be the Mahdi, a messiah – in Shia Islam. Iraqi officials said that the militant leader, Ahmed Ismail Katte, was a Sunni from a Sunni stronghold of Zubayr near Basra in the south. He represented himself as Ahmed Hassan al-Yamani (a Shia name) to win over support for his cause. He was identified as a deputy to the cult leader Dia Abdul Zahra Kadim, who was believed to be a former security officer from the old regime. Their actual names and identities were also questioned. The U.S. military has referred to them only as gunmen, not insurgents or terrorists. Dia Abdul-Zahra was killed in the fighting while the whereabouts of Ahmed Hassani al-Yemeni were not known.