al-Zarqawi, Is He or Isn't He, al-Qaeda? According to NYTimes, Only He Knows For Sure.

LONDON — From a safe house in Falluja last January, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi wrote a rambling, 17-page letter to Osama bin Laden. The letter asked Mr. bin Laden to send Al Qaeda operatives to Iraq to help Mr. Zarqawi continue the guerrilla war against the American occupiers and their allies.

In the letter, Mr. Zarqawi, a 38-year-old Jordanian, had a weary, desperate tone that contradicts the nearly mythic invulnerability ascribed to him by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who have described him as one of the world's most dangerous terrorists. Mr. Zarqawi is, they say, the clearest link between Saddam Hussein's deposed regime and the Qaeda terror network.

In his letter, Mr. Zarqawi hardly sounded emboldened by his guerrilla campaign. Instead he ticked off a lengthy list of obstacles to victory - a shortage of manpower, the wobbly will of some insurgents and peril lurking around every street corner. "Our backs are exposed and our movements compromised," he wrote in the letter, which American forces seized in February from a courier in northern Iraq and later released to the public. "Eyes are everywhere. The enemy is before us and the sea is behind us."

Without question, Mr. Zarqawi is the most hunted man in Iraq. Nearly every week, coalition forces attack suspected safe houses where he may be hiding. Since writing his plea, Mr. Zarqawi has been portrayed by American officials as the world's most prolific terrorist, preaching jihad and practicing it, often while the world watches in horror - most recently in the beheading of a 62-year-old British engineer, Kenneth Bigley, that was confirmed on Friday.

Who is Mr. Zarqawi? Is he Al Qaeda's point man in Iraq, as the Bush administration has repeatedly argued since weeks before the invasion of Iraq? Or, as some European and Middle East intelligence officials argue, is he a staunch rival of Mr. bin Laden's network whose importance has been exaggerated by the United States in an attempt to dramatize a link between Al Qaeda and the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein?

There is no dispute that Mr. Zarqawi has brazenly led a campaign of car bombings, mortar attacks, kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq, asserting his responsibility for the devastating attack in August 2003 on the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. But is Mr. Zarqawi responsible for "most of the major car bombings that have killed or maimed thousands of people," as Mr. Cheney charged at the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday?

He may not be quite the prolific terrorist mastermind that the Bush administration claims. Just as little is known about the Iraq insurgency, there is little known about his organization, the Tawhid and Jihad movement. Estimates vary on the size of his group, anywhere from 50 to 100 "foreign fighters" and former Saddam Hussein loyalists to as many as 1,000. Many intelligence officials in Europe doubt that the man jailed 13 years ago for sexual assault in Jordan possesses the organizational skills or manpower muscle to launch even a small percentage of the nearly 100 insurgents' attacks that occur across Iraq daily.

"I do not think that anyone in Europe or the Middle East honestly believes that he is responsible for everything that the United States says he has done in Iraq," said a senior European intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The guy is on the run. He is hiding from the U.S. forces, and he is probably changing houses every night. It would be almost impossible for him to calmly plan and execute the operations all over Iraq that some people believe he has done." In fact, in the months following the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Zarqawi was virtually unknown to anyone other than Jordanian intelligence officials, who saw him as a dangerous militant with a strong desire to turn Jordan into an Islamic state.

Mr. Zarqawi was literally introduced to the world in February 2003 when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told the United Nations that Mr. Zarqawi was a "collaborator and associate" of Mr. bin Laden's. Mr. Powell also described him as a Qaeda chemical weapons expert who had relocated to Baghdad with Saddam Hussein's blessing and organized a cell of 20 operatives there.

Since then, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have repeatedly portrayed Mr. Zarqawi as the clearest link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's deposed regime. Mr. Zarqawi's presence in Iraq before the war, and his emergence since then, they say, justifies portraying Iraq as a centerpiece of the war against terrorism. During a recent campaign speech in Ohio, President Bush said: "Zarqawi is the best evidence of connection to Al Qaeda affiliates and Al Qaeda. He's the person who is still killing."

However, fresh doubts about Mr. Zarqawi's ties to Iraq were raised by American intelligence officials last week in a report prepared for Mr. Cheney. The Central Intelligence Agency determined that there is no conclusive evidence Saddam Hussein's regime provided safe haven to Mr. Zarqawi in the months leading up to the American invasion of Iraq. This assessment follows a similar finding in June by the Sept. 11 Commission, which concluded that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime.

But at the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday night, Mr. Cheney said the C.I.A. "had not yet reached the bottom line, and there is still debate over this question of the relationship between Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein." Mr. Cheney also said that the C.I.A. assessment reported that several of Mr. Zarqawi's associates had been arrested, and that Mr. Hussein "personally intervened to have them released, supposedly at the request of Zarqawi."

Mr. Cheney added that prior to Sept. 11, Mr. Zarqawi had operated a Qaeda training camp in western Afghanistan, near the Iran border. After Sept. 11, he "migrated to Baghdad," Mr. Cheney said. "He set up shop in Baghdad, where he oversaw the poisons facility up at Kermal, where the terrorists were developing ricin and other deadly substances to use."

After Sept. 11, Mr. Zarqawi was believed by senior American officials to be working closely with Ansar al-Islam, the Kurdish group based in northern Iraq that was formed to attempt to overthrow Saddam Hussein. This represents a fundamental contradiction about Mr. Zarqawi's apparent alliances, some terrorism experts say.

"I have always been quite puzzled by the story that Zarqawi was allegedly closely linked to Ansar al-Islam but also allegedly linked with Saddam Hussein's regime, the very regime that Ansar al-Islam aimed to destroy," said Jessica Stern, who lectures on terrorism at Harvard. "I have been genuinely confused by that."

Some terrorism analysts and European-based intelligence officials say captured associates of Mr. Zarqawi have said he had forged stronger ties with Iran and Syria than Iraq.

"Zarqawi spent more time in Iran than anywhere else after Sept. 11," said Peter Bergen, a fellow at the New America Foundation and an adjunct professor of international studies at Johns Hopkins University. "Zarqawi called Saddam a devil on one of his Web site postings this year."

It's not only the Bush administration that suspects Mr. Zarqawi has played a dominant role in other terrorist attacks and plots. Some officials in Jordan and several European countries have suspected that Mr. Zarqawi's network played a role in a host of terror attacks, and disrupted plots, over the past two years.

Some say that his burgeoning network assisted in the Madrid train bombings last March, as well as helping to organize a plot to carry out ricin attacks in Britain and France in January 2002 and a disrupted plot last spring to launch a massive chemical attack in Amman, Jordan.

However, further investigation into all three plots has raised substantial doubts that Mr. Zarqawi played any role, several senior European officials said.

"It defies common sense to believe Mr. Zarqawi has managed, from a hideout in Iraq, to build a worldwide terror network that has attacked so often," one European-based counterterrorism official said.

While much about Mr. Zarqawi's operations remain unknown, some senior intelligence officials in Europe and the Middle East, as well as some terror experts, argue that the United States has purposely overstated Mr. Zarqawi's importance, turning him into an almost mythic figure. This portrayal may have enhanced his aura with young recruits, helping his organization entice new jihadists in Europe and the Middle East to join his group's ranks, they say.

Mr. Zarqawi sees himself not as a disciple of Mr. bin Laden but as a rival, some officials and analysts said. Mr. Zarqawi's group often competes for recruits with Al Qaeda, particularly in Europe, they say.

"Zarqawi was never part of the leadership of Al Qaeda - he has never sworn allegiance to bin Laden," said a senior German intelligence official, who refused to be identified. "He has been an independent agent, with his own network and ways of doing things that are distinct from Al Qaeda's way of doing things."

Shadi Abdullah, a Tawhid member apprehended in Germany in 2002, told investigators that Mr. Zarqawi's group saw itself to be "in rivalry" with Al Qaeda, according to several senior German officials.

Unlike Mr. bin Laden, who has remained in hiding since the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Zarqawi relies on high-profile kidnappings combined with sweeping demands, like calling for the release of all women prisoners held by coalition forces in Iraq. And he does many of the beheadings himself, officials believe. On May 11, a video titled "Sheik Abu Musab Zarqawi Slaughters an American Infidel" appeared on an Islamic militants' Web site that showed the beheading of Nicholas Berg, the young communications engineer from Pennsylvania. American intelligence officials say they believe that Mr. Zarqawi used a kitchen knife to slit Mr. Berg's throat.

Mr. Zarqawi, who has never sworn fealty to Mr. bin Laden, does not regard himself as one of Al Qaeda's lieutenants, some officials and analysts said, but rather as an equal fighting for a similar cause.

For example, in his January plea to Mr. bin Laden, Mr. Zarqawi referred to a divide between his group and the Qaeda network. He approached the Qaeda chief as a fellow terror network leader with a proposal that might be mutually beneficial. Mr. Zarqawi told Mr. bin Laden that any Qaeda recruits sent to Iraq to fight would "work under your banner." Mr. Zarqawi concluded by saying he would not harbor ill will if Mr. bin Laden refused to provide additional men.

"We are brothers," Mr. Zarqawi wrote, "and the disagreement will not spoil friendship."

When I read this article this morning, I found it very disturbing, an uneasy queasiness came over me. It was as if the writer was insinuating (as if by trying to appeal to our good and decent common sense) that al-Zarqawi might be innocent of Baghdad terrorist crimes as well as being so misunderstood. He claims over and over again that the U.S. bullies Bush and Cheney (the bad guys now), for some unfathomable reason, are picking on this "weary, desparate, 38 year old Jordanian amputee" describing him as one of the world's most dangerous terrorist and the clearest link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

Of course, according to unnamed European Intelligence sources...he couldn't possibly be the world's most prolific terrorist, he couldn't be running the terrorist show in Baghdad, even though he's the guy who's claim credit for many beheadings and other horrific terrorist acts of late. (See articles cited below)

Again The New York Times would have us question our own government's Intelligence and give al-Zarqawi a break and the benefit of our doubts (so necessary to be fair, equal and balanced before the upcoming Presidential election)... after all al-Zarqawi as a terrorist, according to John Kerry, is only a "nuisance", as if he's a horsefly just doing his thing, only sucking blood wherever he lits.

ARTICLES

Zarqawi group claims car bomb that killed 10 Iraqi police recruits DUBAI, Oct 9 (AFP) -

The group headed by suspected Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for a car bombing in western Iraq on Wednesday that authorities said killed 10 police recruits and that the group said left 40 dead.

A statement on an Islamist website late Saturday said "one of the lion's cubs of the 'Brigade of Candidates for Martyrdom," belonging to the group Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) managed to infiltrate members of the infidels' would-be civil defense ... killing 40 of them."

The statement, at www.ansarnet.ws/vb/, could not be independently verified.

In a rare car bombing in Iraq's barren western plains, a suicide attacker on Wednesday rammed his vehicle into a group of people signing up with the national guard at a military base in Anah, some 260 kilometres (160 miles) west of Baghdad.

Police said 10 young recruits were killed and 24 wounded in the latest attack on the fledgling force, which has been repeatedly targeted by the insurgents.

Zarqawi, the most-wanted man in Iraq, has a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head.

Tawhid wal Jihad has claimed responsibility for many of the kidnappings of foreigners in Iraq, including that of British engineer Kenneth Bigley, whom it beheaded earlier this week. http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=30344

AND THESE ARTICLES POSTED THIS LAST WEEK ON FREE REPUBLIC

Georstrategy Direct - Subscription ^ 10/07/04 | Bill Gertz Posted on 10/07/2004 4:24:25 AM PDT by Perdogg

Al Qaida-linked terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi is preparing to carry out a major terrorist attack in Europe or the United States, according to Iraqi intelligence sources. A report prepared by Iraqi intelligence agencies has uncovered new information about Zarqawi's Tawhid wa Jihad terrorist group, including the composition of his movement and his strategy and objectives.

The link to CNN's Transcript of Colin Powell's Presentation to the UN,

Part 9 "Iraqi Ties to Al Qaida" Posted on 10/06/2004 5:09:01 PM PDT by focusandclarity

Iraq's Ties to al Qaeda

..."But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda lieutenants." ...

..."When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp. And this camp is located in northeastern Iraq."...

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.powell.transcript.09/

Jamaat al-Tawhid wa'l-Jihad [Unity and Jihad Group] is believed to be led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi [aka Abu Massad Al-Zakawi]. Al-Zarqawi is a Jordanian-born Sunni militant said to have links to Al-Qaeda. He is wanted by the United States on suspicion on organizing terrorist attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq.

The beheading of a US civilian by a group with ties to Al-Qaeda was a shocking image from Iraq. The group appears to be hoping that the graphic videotape will fan anger at Washington even as it revolts the public. The video, released ll May 2004, is titled: "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American." The videotape shows 26-year-old Nicholas Berg kneeling on the floor as one of the masked men reads a statement saying he will be killed in response to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghurayb prison. Next, a man puts a large knife under Berg's neck and begins sawing off his victim's head. The killer shouts "God is Great" over Berg's screams. Then, he holds up the severed head to the camera like an executioner.

ABU MUSA'AB AL-ZARQAWI [AKAs: KHALAILAH, Ahmed Fadee Ii AL-KHALAYLAH, Ahmad Fadil Nazzali ABU AL-MU'TAZ], has ties to al-Qaida, Asbat al-Ansar and Hizballah. In addition to providing the financial and material support for the assassination of a U.S. diplomat, he has participated in acts of terrorism, trained terrorist, led terrorist cells, facilitated transport of terrorists and is being cited in the international press as a suspect in the recent devastating bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad.

ZARQAWI has arranged training for terrorists at al-Qaida camps. While he was in Pakistan, ZARQAWI made contact with al-Qaida to train Jordanians. His operatives (called "Jund al-Sham") began to arrive in Afghanistan in large numbers in l999. Some of these operatives trained at al-Qaida's al-Faruq Camp, where they received full support from al-Qaida. ZARQAWI eventually established his own cell and camp in Herat, Afghanistan.

Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a terrorist training camp. One of his specialties, and one of the specialties of this camp, is poisons. When the American-led coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp, and this camp is located in northeastern Iraq.

Plans were made to send ZARQAWI's operatives to meet with Asbat al-Ansar (designated under E.O. l3224 as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist on September 24, 2001 and as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on March 27, 2002), Hizballah and any other group that would enable them to smuggle mujaheddin into Palestine. This plan was launched by ZARQAWI with other terrorist leaders in order to smuggle operatives into Israel to conduct operations. In addition to being tasked with finding a mechanism that would enable more suicide martyrs to enter Israel, these operatives were also sent to provide training on explosives, poisons, and remote controlled devices.

In October 2000, ZARQAWI was indicted in absentia in Jordan for his role in the al-Qaida Millennium bombing plot targeting the Radisson SAS hotel in Amman as well as other American, Israeli, and Christian religious sites in Jordan.

In mid 2001, ZARQAWI returned to Qandahar from Herat. At this time, he had received more than $35,000 (US) for work in Palestine. ZARQAWI planned to use the money to bring more Jordanian and Palestinian mujaheddin to the camp in Herat, to purchase passports, and to facilitate travel to Lebanon. He received assurances that further financing would be provided for attacks against Israel. In early 2002, ZARQAWI was reported to have found a way into Palestine.

Zarqawi's activities were not confined to a small corner of northeast Iraq. He traveled to Baghdad in May of 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day. During his stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. These al-Qaida affiliates based in Baghdad coordinated the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network.

On October 28, 2002, U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley, an officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development, was assassinated in Amman, Jordan. ZARQAWI provided financial and material support for this assassination. Key individuals involved in both the planning and execution of the operation had strong ties to Afghan Jihad, the International Mujaheddin Movement, and al-Qaida. One of these individuals, Salim Sa'd Salim Bin-Suwayd, a member of al-Qaida, received more than $50,000 (US) for his cooperation in planning assassinations in Jordan against U.S., Israeli, and Jordanian government officials. ZARQAWI instructed Suwayd to hide after he had completed his first operation and to plan to pursue additional operations against Israeli and Jordanian targets in Amman in the future. Jordanian authorities arrested Suwayd for the murder. The trial of Suwayd, a Libyan national, is currently underway in Jordan.

In late 2002, ZARQAWI traveled to Iraq where he initiated plans to smuggle additional small arms, explosives, and rockets (NFl) into Jordan for use by his terrorist cell.

The German government has established that ZARQAWI is the operational leader of Al Tawhid, an organization with close personal and organizational links to the al-Qaida network. Al Tawhid, which has the figurative meaning of "unity of all the faithful" -is the name of a Palestinian Sunni movement with roots in Jordan. It is waging a campaign against the Jordanian monarchy, which it rejects as "un-Islamic." Based on a militant interpretation of Islam, the Al Tawhid movement promotes and supports the "jihad" of all fellow-believers worldwide; in particular, the "fight against non-believers and crusaders" led by Usama bin Laden and al-Qaida.

The German government notes that an independent Al Tawhid cell was formed in Germany by September 2001. Formed around Mohamed ABU DHESS, the cell worked in both an isolated and clandestine manner. In addition to ZARQAWI, members of the cell included Mohamed ABU DHESS, Shadi ABDALLA, Aschraf AI-DAGMA, and Ismail SHALABI, who were living in Beckum, German. In early September 2001, ZARQAWI met his confidant, Mohamed ABU DHESS, in Iran and instructed him to commit terrorist attacks against Jewish or Israeli facilities in Germany with "his people."

According to the German government, the group was involved in gathering donations, smuggling "fighters" and forging passports, but then increasingly concentrated on planning the attacks in Germany. ZARQAWI urged them to carry out his instructions swiftly. The members of the cell planned to use a pistol fitted with a silencer to carry out an attack on a busy square in a German town or city and to explode hand grenades in another German town in the immediate vicinity of an Israeli or Jewish property with the aim of killing as many people as possible. The attacks were supposed to be carried out by Shadi ABDALLA, Aschraf AL-DAGMA and Ismail SHALABI. (Ramsey County, pay attention to this op-plan!).

The German government has also stated that Shadi ABDALLA, a trusted ally of ZARQAWI with close contacts to Mohamed ABU DHESS, was instructed to identify potential targets in German cities and, above all, to obtain the necessary weapons. In March 2002 he ordered a pistol fitted with a silencer and a crate of hand grenades from Djamel MOUSTFA, a supporter of the cell based in Dusseldorf. However, before the weapons could be delivered, Shadi ABDALLA, Mohamed ABU DHESS, Aschraf AL-DAGMA, Ismail SHALABI and Djamel MOUSTFA were arrested along with other suspects on April 23, 2002. All five of them are currently in detention awaiting trial.

Shadi ABDALLA was indicted by the German Public Prosecutor General of the Federal Court of Justice on May 15, 2003 before the State Security Division of the Dusseldorf Higher Regional Court for being a member of a terrorist organization and for the organized forging of passports. The investigations against Mohamed ABU DHESS, Aschraf AL-DAGMA, Ismail SHALABI, and Djamel MOUSTFA are still ongoing.

Semper Fi

The terror network is fairly loose-knit and continuously morphs to fit the circumstance of the moment. Mainstream writers have trouble understanding any of this, because they are looking for well-defined organizations with well-defined org charts, employee lists, ID badges, secret handshakes. They forget that this falls into the category of "espionage", where such things are designed to be deniable, and evidence is consequently never going to be court-room-clear.

They fixate on differences that divide the movement and fail to notice how they cooperate, and how even when they don't cooperate their various activities still combine into a multi-faceted threat to us.

They fail to note that state sponsored terror would be executed at arms length, and would be done in such a way as to blend with the normal loose-knit terror groups. They fail to note that a given individual might be working with one group this week and another next week.

They will announce as doctrine that Shias don't cooperate with Sunni, that Iranians don't cooperate with Arabs, that a Wahab such as Bin Ladin would never cooperate with a secularist such as Saddam, and so they will miss such collaboration when it occurs.

Someone like Bin Ladin has numerous connections, to the Saudis, to the Pakistanis, to Saddam (there is in fact evidence of a pact). Someone like Zarqawi might be working with Hezbollah this week, Iran next week, Saddam the week after, and when the whole thing collapses running the insurgency funded by, what, Iranian money? Saddam's money smuggled out before the fall? Saudi charity money? All this may confuse some people, but Zarqawi will get funding where ever he can. Just like Bin Ladin.

So, they are free-lancers. But they also receive state funding, from Iraq, from the Saudis, from Pakistan, from Iran, from Syria, breaking all the rules that writers such as this one use to keep it all clear in their minds.

You fight terrorists like this by cutting off their sources of support, either by overthrowing them, or by threatening them convincingly with such a fate. You buy off or kill their support network at the same time you chase them down directly. Taking down Saddam was part of the puzzle. Syria, Pakistan, and the Saudis each need to be managed or pole-axed, and Iran cries out for special handling.

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