Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader paid tribute to the slain Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a video Friday, extolling him as “the prince of martyrs” despite the rocky relationship that the terrorist leader in Iraq had with the al-Qaida command.

The video, aired on the Qatari-based TV channel Al-Jazeera, was the first acknowledgment by al-Qaida’s central leadership of the death of al-Zarqawi, who was killed June 7 in a U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad.

The clip showed al-Qaida’s deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, wearing a white robe and black turban, speaking to the camera with a picture of a smiling al-Zarqawi over his left shoulder.