On
this date, 7 June 2006, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian Terrorist was was
killed in a targeted killing by the USAF on June 7, 2006, while attending a
meeting in an isolated safehouse approximately 8 km (5.0 mi) north of
Baqubah. One United States Air Force F-16C jet dropped two 500-pound
(230 kg) guided bombs on the safehouse.
Let
us not forget those foreign hostages murdered brutally and sadistically by this
evil man and remember, he is now demolished for good! I will post information
about him from Wikipedia.
 |
| Abu Musab al-Zarqawi |
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (Arabic: أبومصعب الزرقاوي,
’Abū Muṣ‘ab az-Zarqāwī, Abu Musab from
Zarqa); October 30, 1966 – June 7, 2006), born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal
al-Khalayleh (Arabic: أحمد فضيل النزال الخلايله, ’Aḥmad Faḍīl an-Nazāl al-Ḫalāyla)
was a Jordanian militant Islamist who ran a paramilitary training camp in
Afghanistan. He became known after going to Iraq and being responsible for a
series of bombings, beheadings, and attacks during the Iraq War.
He
formed al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in the 1990s, and led it until his death in June
2006. Zarqawi took responsibility, on several audio- and videotapes, for
numerous acts of violence in Iraq including suicide bombings and hostage
executions. Zarqawi opposed the presence of US and Western military forces in
the Islamic world, as well as the West's support for the existence of Israel.
In late 2004 he joined al-Qaeda, and pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden. After
this al-Tawhid wal-Jihad became known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and al-Zarqawi
was given the Al-Qaeda title, "Emir of Al Qaeda in the Country of Two
Rivers".
In
September 2005, he declared "all-out war" on Shia in Iraq after the
Iraqi government offensive on insurgents in the Sunni town of Tal Afar. He
dispatched numerous suicide bombers throughout Iraq to attack American soldiers
and areas with large concentrations of Shia militias. He is also responsible
for the 2005 bombing of three hotels in Amman, Jordan. Zarqawi was killed in a targeted killing by the USAF on June 7,
2006, while attending a meeting in an isolated safehouse approximately
8 km (5.0 mi) north of Baqubah. One United States Air Force F-16C jet
dropped two 500-pound (230 kg) guided bombs on the safehouse.
 |
| Abu Musab al-Zarqawi |
Born
|
October 30,
1966
Zarqa, Jordan |
Died
|
June 7, 2006
(aged 39)
Hibhib, Iraq |
Allegiance
|
al-Qaeda
|
Unit
|
Jama'at
al-Tawhid wal-Jihad
Al-Qaeda in Iraq |
Battles/wars
|
Iraq War
|
Early
life
Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh (Arabic: أحمد فضيل النزال الخلايلة, ’Aḥmad Faḍīl
an-Nazāl al-Ḫalāyla), is believed to have been al-Zarqawi's real
name. "Abu Musab" literally translates to "Musab's father,"
while the surname "al-Zarqawi" translates as "one from
Zarqa." Zarqawi was a native of the Jordanian city of Zarqa, located approximately
21 kilometers (13 mi) northeast of the capital Amman. Born in a Jordanian
family (including al-Khalayleh of the Beni Hassan tribe), Zarqawi grew up in
Zarqa, where he was a street thug involved in as many as 37 incidents with
police, while struggling with alcoholism.
Abu Musab was a sturdy man who was not really very good at words. He expressed himself spontaneously and briefly. He would not compromise any of his beliefs. — Saif al-Adel
Insurgency
In
1989, Zarqawi traveled to Afghanistan to join the insurgency against the Soviet
invasion, but the Soviets were already leaving by the time he arrived. There he
met and befriended Osama bin Laden. Instead of fighting, he became a reporter
for an Islamist newsletter. There are reports that in the mid-1990s, Zarqawi
traveled to Europe and started the al-Tawhid paramilitary organization, a group
dedicated to installing an Islamic regime in Jordan.
Zarqawi
was arrested in Jordan in the 1990s after guns and explosives were found in his
home, and spent six years in a Jordanian prison. While in prison, he attempted
to draft his cell mates into joining him to overthrow the rulers of Jordan.
"You were either with them or against them. There was no gray area," a
former prison mate told Time magazine in 2004. Zarqawi became a feared
leader among inmates there. In prison he met and befriended Jordanian
journalist Fouad Hussein, who later published a book on Zarqawi.
Upon
his release from prison in 1999, Zarqawi was involved in an attempt to blow up
the Radisson Hotel in Amman, where many Israeli and American tourists lodged.
He fled Jordan and traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border.
In Afghanistan, Zarqawi established a militant training camp near Herat, near
the Iranian border. The training camp specialized in poisons and explosives.
Zarqawi met with Saif al-Adel and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and explained
he intended to set up his own training camp in Herat for Jordanian militants.
Jordanian
and European intelligence agencies discovered that Zarqawi formed the group
Jund al-Sham in 1999 with $200,000 of start up money from Osama bin Laden. The
group originally consisted of 150 members. It was infiltrated by members of
Jordanian intelligence, and scattered before Operation Enduring Freedom.
However, in March 2005, a fragment of the group carried out a bombing in Doha,
Qatar. Sometime in 2001, Zarqawi was arrested in Jordan but was soon released.
He was later convicted in absentia and sentenced to death for plotting the
attack on the Radisson SAS Hotel.
After
the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, Zarqawi returned to help repel the
assault, where he suffered cracked ribs following the collapse of a bombed
house.
The
Bush Administration used the possibility of Zarqawi's presence in Iraq before
March 2003 to justify the invasion of Iraq; recently declassified Pentagon
documents reveal that there was no substantial link between al-Qaeda and Saddam
Hussein.
Zarqawi
was the most wanted man in Jordan and Iraq, having participated in or
masterminded a number of violent actions against Iraqi, Jordanian and United
States targets. The US government offered a $25m reward for information leading
to his capture, the same amount offered for the capture of bin Laden before
March 2004. On October 15, 2004, the U.S. State Department added Zarqawi and
the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad group to its "list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations"
and ordered a freeze on any assets that the group might have in the United
States. On February 24, 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice's FBI also added
al-Zarqawi to the "Seeking Information – War on Terrorism" list,
the first time that he had ever been added to any of the FBI's three
major "wanted" lists.
Personal
life
Zarqawi
is believed to have had three wives. His first wife, Umm Mohammed, was a
Jordanian woman who was around 40 years old when Zarqawi died in June 2006. She
lived in Zarqa, Jordan along with their four children, including a
seven-year-old son, Musab. She had advised Zarqawi to leave Iraq temporarily
and give orders to his deputies from outside the country. "He gave me an
angry look and said, 'Me, me? I can't betray my religion and get out of Iraq.
In the Name of Allah, I will not leave Iraq until victory or martyrdom'"
she quoted al-Zarqawi as saying. Zarqawi's second wife, Isra, was 14 years old
when he married her. She was the daughter of Yassin Jarrad, a Palestinian
Islamic militant, who is blamed for the killing in 2003 of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir
al-Hakim, the Iraqi Shia leader. She bore him a child when she was
15 and was killed along with Zarqawi and their child. Al-Zarqawi's third wife
was an Iraqi who might have perished in the airstrike with her husband.
Known
attacks
Attacks
outside Iraq
Zarqawi's
first major attempt at a terrorist attack occurred in 1999 after his release
from prison. He was involved in an attempt to blow up the Radisson SAS Hotel in
Amman in 1999 because it was frequented by many Israeli and American tourists.
He failed in this attempt and fled to Afghanistan and then entered Iraq via
Iran after the overthrow of the Taliban in late 2001. From Iraq he started his
terrorist campaign by hiring men to kill Laurence Foley who was a senior U.S.
diplomat working for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Jordan.
On October 28, 2002, Foley was assassinated outside his home in Amman. Under
interrogation by Jordanian authorities, three suspects confessed that they had
been armed and paid by Zarqawi to perform the assassination. U.S. officials
believe that the planning and execution of the Foley assassination was led by
members of Afghan Jihad, the International Mujaheddin Movement, and al-Qaeda.
One of the leaders, Salim Sa'd Salim Bin-Suwayd, was paid over $27,858 for his
work in planning assassinations in Jordan against U.S., Israeli, and Jordanian
government officials. Suwayd was arrested in Jordan for the murder of Foley.
Zarqawi was again sentenced in absentia in Jordan; this time, as before,
his sentence was death.
Zarqawi
also helped plan a series of deadly bomb attacks in Casablanca, Morocco and
Istanbul, Turkey in 2003. U.S. officials believe that Zarqawi trained others in
the use of poison (ricin) for possible attacks in Europe. Zarqawi had also
planned to attack a NATO summit in June 2004. According to suspects arrested in
Turkey, Zarqawi sent them to Istanbul to organize an attack on a NATO summit
there on June 28 or June 29 of 2004. On April 26, 2004, Jordanian authorities
announced they had broken up an al-Qaeda plot to use chemical weapons in Amman.
Among the targets were the U.S. Embassy, the Jordanian prime minister's office
and the headquarters of Jordanian intelligence. In a series of raids, the
Jordanians seized 20 tons of chemicals, including blistering agents and nerve
gas. and numerous explosives. Also seized were three trucks equipped with
specially modified plows, apparently designed to crash through security
barricades. Jordanian state television aired a videotape of four men admitting
they were part of the plot. One of the conspirators, Azmi Al-Jayousi, said that
he was acting on the orders of Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi. On
February 15, 2006, Jordan's High Court of Security sentenced nine men,
including al-Zarqawi, to death for their involvement in the plot. Zarqawi was
convicted of planning the entire attack from his post in Iraq, funding the
operation with nearly $120,000, and sending a group of Jordanians into Jordan
to execute the plan. Eight of the defendants were accused of belonging to a
previously unknown group, "Kata'eb al-Tawhid" or Battalions of
Monotheism, which was headed by al-Zarqawi and linked to al Qaeda. Zarqawi was
believed to have masterminded the 2005 Amman bombings
that killed sixty people in three hotels, including several officials of the
Palestinian Authority and members of a Chinese defense delegation.
 |
|
American hostage Nick Berg
seated, with five men standing over him. The man directly behind him, alleged
to be Zarqawi, is the one who beheaded Berg.
|
Attacks
inside Iraq
The
Weekly Standard reports that, before the invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi ran a
"terrorist haven" in Kurdish northern Iraq. According to a March 2003
British intelligence report, Zarqawi had set up "sleeper cells" in Baghdad before the Iraq war. The report stated "Reporting
since (February) suggests that senior al Qaeda associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
has established sleeper cells in Baghdad, to be activated during a U.S.
occupation of the city...These cells apparently intend to attack U.S. targets
using car bombs and other weapons. (It is also possible that they have received
[chemical and biological] materials from terrorists in the [Kurdish Autonomous
Zone]),...al Qaeda-associated terrorists continued to arrive in Baghdad in
early March."
In
May 2004, a video appeared on an alleged al-Qaeda website showing a group of
five men, their faces covered with keffiyeh or balaclavas, beheading American
civilian Nicholas Berg,
who had been abducted and taken hostage in Iraq weeks earlier. The CIA claimed
that the speaker on the tape wielding the knife that killed Berg was
al-Zarqawi. The video opens with the title "Abu Musa'b al-Zarqawi
slaughters an American." The speaker states that the murder was in
retaliation for US abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison (see Abu
Ghraib prison abuse scandal). Following the death of al-Zarqawi, CNN
spoke with Nicholas's father and long-time anti-war activist Michael Berg, who stated that al-Zarqawi's
killing would lead to further vengeance and was not a cause for rejoicing.
Zarqawi
is also believed to have personally beheaded another American civilian, Owen Eugene Armstrong, in September 2004.
After Zarqawi died, Cindy Armstrong, wife of a cousin of Eugene, would just
state that "an evil man is dead".
United
States officials implicated Zarqawi in over 700 killings in Iraq during the
invasion, mostly from bombings. Since March 2004, that number rose to the
thousands. According to the United States State Department, Zarqawi was
responsible for the Canal Hotel bombing
of the United Nations Headquarters in Iraq on August 19, 2003. This attack
killed twenty-two people, including the United Nations secretary general's
special Iraqi envoy Sergio Vieira de
Mello. Zarqawi's biggest alleged atrocities in Iraq included the
attacks on the Shia shrines in Karbala and Baghdad in March 2004, which killed
over 180 people, and the car bomb attacks in Najaf and Karbala in December
2004, which claimed over 60 lives. Zarqawi is believed by the former Coalition
Provisional Authority in Iraq to have written an intercepted letter to the
al-Qaeda leadership in February 2004 on the progress of the "Iraqi
jihad." However, al-Qaeda denied they had written the letter. The U.S.
military believes Zarqawi organized the February 2006 attack on the Al
Askari Mosque in Samarra, in an attempt
to trigger sectarian violence
between Sunnis and Shi'ites in Iraq.
In
a January 2005 internet recording, Zarqawi condemned democracy as "the big
American lie" and said participants in Iraq's January 30 election were
enemies of Islam. Zarqawi stated "We have declared a bitter war against
democracy and all those who seek to enact it...Democracy is also based on the
right to choose your religion [and that is] against the rule of Allah."
On
April 25, 2006, a video appearing to show Zarqawi surfaced. In the tape, the
man says holy warriors are fighting on despite a three-year "crusade".
U.S. experts told the BBC they believed the recording was genuine. One part of
the recording shows a man – who bears a strong resemblance to previous pictures
of Zarqawi – sitting on the floor and addressing a group of masked men with an
automatic rifle at his side. "Your mujahideen sons were able to confront
the most ferocious of crusader campaigns on a Muslim state," the man says.
Addressing U.S. President George W. Bush, he says: "Why don't you tell
people that your soldiers are committing suicide, taking drugs and
hallucination pills to help them sleep?" "By Allah," he says,
"your dreams will be defeated by our blood and by our bodies. What is
coming is even worse." The speaker in the video also reproaches the U.S.
for its "arrogance and insolence" in rejecting a truce offered by
"our prince and leader," Osama Bin Laden. The United States Army
aired an unedited tape of Zarqawi in May 2006 highlighting the fact that he did
not know how to clear a stoppage on the stolen M249 Squad
Automatic Weapon he was using.
 |
|
American hostage Eugene Armstrong, with five
men standing behind him. The man in the center, said to be Zarqawi, is the one
who beheaded him.
|
Attempts
to provoke US attack on Iran
A
document found in Zarqawi's safe house indicates that the group was trying to
provoke the US to attack Iran in order to reinvigorate the insurgency in Iraq
and to weaken American forces in Iraq. "The
question remains, how to draw the Americans into fighting a war against Iran?
It is not known whether America is serious in its animosity towards Iran,
because of the big support Iran is offering to America in its war in
Afghanistan and in Iraq. Hence, it is necessary first to exaggerate the Iranian
danger and to convince America and the West in general, of the real danger
coming from Iran ..." The document then outlines six ways to incite war
between the two nations.
Alleged
links to al-Qaeda
After
the 2001
war in Afghanistan, Zarqawi appeared on a U.S. list of most-wanted
al-Qaeda terrorists still at large in early 2002.
According
to the Washington Post and some other sources, he formally swore loyalty (Bay'ah) to bin Laden in October 2004 and
was in turn appointed bin Laden's deputy. Zarqawi then changed the name of his
Monotheism and Jihad network to "al-Qaeda in Iraq," (Tanzim
al-Qaeda wa'l-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn)
Pre
US Invasion of Iraq
Before
the invasion of Afghanistan, Zarqawi was the leader of an Islamic militant
group with some connections to al-Qaeda. In an interview on Al-Majd TV,
former al-Qaeda member Walid Khan, who was in Afghanistan fighting alongside
Zarqawi's group explained that from the day al-Zarqawi's group arrived, there
were disagreements, differences of opinion with bin Laden. Saif al-Adel, now
bin Laden's military chief, was an Egyptian who attempted to overthrow the
Egyptian government saw merit in Zarqawi's overall objective of overthrowing
the Jordanian monarchy. He intervened and smoothed the relations between
Zarqawi and Al Qaeda leadership. It was agreed that Zarqawi will be given the
funds to start up his training camp outside the Afghan city of Herat, near the
Iranian border.
Zarqawi's
group continued to receive funding from Osama bin Laden and pursued "a
largely distinct, if occasionally overlapping agenda," according to The
Washington Post. Counterterrorism experts told the Washington Post
that while Zarqawi accepted al-Qaeda's financial help to set up a training camp
in Afghanistan he ran it independently and while bin Laden was planning
September 11, Zarqawi was busy developing a plot to topple the Jordanian
monarchy and attack Israel.
The
Washington Post also reported that German Intelligence wiretaps found
that in the fall of 2001 that Zarqawi grew angry when his members were raising
money in Germany for al-Qaeda's local leadership. "If something should
come from their side, simply do not accept it," Zarqawi told one of his
followers, according to a recorded conversation that was played at a trial of
four alleged Zarqawi operatives in Düsseldorf.
In
2001, bin Laden repeatedly summoned al-Zarqawi from Herat to Kandahar, asking
that he take an oath of allegiance to him. al-Zarqawi refused; he didn't want
to take sides against the Northern Alliance, and doubted the fervor of bin
Laden and the Taliban. When the United States launched its air war inside
Afghanistan, on October 7, 2001, al-Zarqawi joined forces with al-Qaeda and the
Taliban for the first time. He and his Jund al-Sham fought in and around Herat
and Kandahar. When Zarqawi finally did take the oath in October 2004, it was
after eight months of negotiations.
When
Shadi Abdellah was arrested in 2002, he
cooperated with authorities, but suggested that al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden
were not as closely linked as previously believed, in large part because
al-Zarqawi disagreed with many of the sentiments put forward by Mahfouz Ould
al-Walid for al-Qaeda.
In
April 2007, former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet released his
memoir titled At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA. In
the book he reveals that in July 2001, an associate of Zarqawi had been detained
and, during interrogations, linked Zarqawi with al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah. Tenet also wrote in his book
that Thirwat
Shihata and Yussef Dardiri, "assessed by a senior al-Qa'ida
detainee to be among the Egyptian Islamic
Jihad's best operational planners," arrived in Baghdad in May
2002 and were engaged in "sending recruits to train in Zarqawi's
camps."
Post
US Invasion of Iraq
During
or shortly before the invasion of Iraq
in March 2003, Zarqawi returned to Iraq, where he met with Bin
Laden's military chief, Saif al-Adel (Muhammad Ibrahim Makawi), who asked him
to coordinate the entry of al-Qaeda operatives into Iraq through Syria. Zarqawi
readily agreed and by the fall of 2003 a steady flow of Arab Islamists were
infiltrating Iraq via Syria. Although many of these foreign fighters were not
members of Tawhid, they became more or less dependent on Zarqawi's local
contacts once they entered the unfamiliar country. Moreover, given Tawhid's
superior intelligence gathering capability, it made little sense for non-Tawhid
operatives to plan and carry out attacks without coordinating with Zarqawi's
lieutenants. Consequentially, Zarqawi came to be recognized as the regional
"emir" of Islamist terrorists in Iraq without having sworn fealty to
bin Laden.
U.S.
intelligence intercepted a January 2004 letter from Zarqawi to al Qaeda and
American officials made it public in February 2004. In the letter to bin Laden,
Zarqawi wrote:
“You, gracious brothers, are the leaders, guides, and symbolic figures of jihad and battle. We do not see ourselves as fit to challenge you, and we have never striven to achieve glory for ourselves. All that we hope is that we will be the spearhead, the enabling vanguard, and the bridge on which the Islamic nation crosses over to the victory that is promised and the tomorrow to which we aspire. This is our vision, and we have explained it. This is our path, and we have made it clear. If you agree with us on it, if you adopt it as a program and road, and if you are convinced of the idea of fighting the sects of apostasy, we will be your readied soldiers, working under your banner, complying with your orders, and indeed swearing fealty to you publicly and in the news media, vexing the infidels and gladdening those who preach the oneness of Allah. On that day, the believers will rejoice in Allah’s victory. If things appear otherwise to you, we are brothers, and the disagreement will not spoil our friendship. This is a cause in which we are cooperating for the good and supporting jihad. Awaiting your response, may Allah preserve you as keys to good and reserves for Islam and its people.”
In
October 2004, a message on an Islamic Web site posted in the name of the
spokesman of Zarqawi's group announced that Zarqawi had sworn his network's
allegiance to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. The message stated that:
“Numerous messages were passed between ‘Abu Musab' (Allah protect him) and the al-Qaeda brotherhood over the past eight months, establishing a dialogue between them. No sooner had the calls been cut off than Allah chose to restore them, and our most generous brothers in al-Qaeda came to understand the strategy of the Tawhid wal-Jihad organization in Iraq, the land of the two rivers and of the Caliphs, and their hearts warmed to its methods and overall mission. Let it be known that al-Tawhid wal-Jihad pledges both its leaders and its soldiers to the mujahid commander, Sheikh 'Osama bin Laden' (in word and in deed) and to jihad for the sake of Allah until there is no more discord [among the ranks of Islam] and all of the religion turns toward Allah...By Allah, O sheikh of the mujahideen, if you bid us plunge into the ocean, we would follow you. If you ordered it so, we would obey. If you forbade us something, we would abide by your wishes. For what a fine commander you are to the armies of Islam, against the inveterate infidels and apostates!”
On
December 27, 2004, Al Jazeera broadcast an audiotape of bin Laden calling
Zarqawi "the prince of al Qaeda in Iraq" and asked "all our
organization brethren to listen to him and obey him in his good deeds."
Since that time, Zarqawi had referred to his own organization as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad.
In
May 2007, President George W. Bush declassified a U.S. intelligence report that
stated that bin Laden had enlisted Zarqawi to plan strikes inside the U.S., and
warned that in January 2005 bin Laden had assigned Zarqawi to organize a cell
inside Iraq that would be used to plan and carry out attacks against the U.S.
"Bin Laden tasked the terrorist Zarqawi ... with forming a cell to conduct
terrorist attacks outside of Iraq," Bush stated in a commencement address
at the Coast Guard Academy. "Bin Laden emphasized that America should be
Zarqawi's No.1 priority."
Terrorism
experts' view on the alliance
According
to experts, Zarqawi gave al-Qaeda a highly visible presence in Iraq at a time
when its original leaders went into hiding or were killed after the September
11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. In turn, al-Qaeda
leaders were able to brand a new franchise in Iraq and claim they were at the
forefront of the fight to expel U.S. forces.[55] But this relationship was proven
to be fragile as Zarqawi angered al-Qaeda leaders by focusing attacks on Iraqi
Shias more often than U.S. military. In September 2005, U.S. intelligence
officials said they had confiscated a long letter that al-Qaeda's deputy
leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
had written to Zarqawi, bluntly warning that Muslim public opinion was turning
against him. According to Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Center for the Study
of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in
Scotland, "A number of al-Qaeda figures were uncomfortable with the
tactics he was using in Iraq... It was quite clear with Zarqawi that as far as
the al-Qaeda core leadership goes, they couldn't control the way in which their
network affiliates operated."
US
officials' view of the alliance
In
June 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld conceded that Zarqawi’s ties to
Al Qaeda may have been much more ambiguous—and that he may have been more of a
rival than a lieutenant to bin Laden. Zarqawi "may very well not have
sworn allegiance to [bin Laden]," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing.
"Maybe he disagrees with him on something, maybe because he wants to be
‘The Man’ himself and maybe for a reason that’s not known to me." Rumsfeld
added that, "someone could legitimately say he’s not Al Qaeda."
According
to the Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence released in September 2006,
"in April 2003 the CIA learned from a senior al-Qa'ida detainee that
al-Zarqawi had rebuffed several efforts by bin Ladin to recruit him. The
detainee claimed that al-Zarqawi had religious differences with bin Ladin and
disagreed with bin Laden's singular focus against the United States. The CIA
assessed in April 2003 that al-Zarqawi planned and directed independent
terrorist operations without al Qaeda direction, but assessed that he 'most
likely contracts out his network's services to al Qaeda in return for material
and financial assistance from key al Qaeda facilitators.'"(page 90)
In
the April 2006 National Intelligence Estimate, declassified in September 2006,
it asserts that "Al-Qa’ida, now merged with Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi’s
network, is exploiting the situation in Iraq to attract new recruits and donors
and to maintain its leadership role."
Alleged
links to Saddam Hussein
On
February 5, 2003, then Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the U.N.
Security Council on the issue of Iraq. Regarding Zarqawi, Powell stated that:
“Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Al-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. He traveled to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day. During this stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. These Al Qaeda affiliates, based in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they've now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months. We asked a friendly security service to approach Baghdad about extraditing Zarqawi and providing information about him and his close associates. This service contacted Iraqi officials twice, and we passed details that should have made it easy to find Zarqawi. The network remains in Baghdad.”
Zarqawi
recuperated in Baghdad after being wounded while fighting along with Taliban
and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. According to the 2004 Senate Report of
Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq, "A foreign government service asserted that
the IIS (Iraqi Intelligence Service) knew where al-Zarqawi was located despite
Baghdad’s claims that it could not find him."page
337 The Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence also stated "As indicated
in Iraqi Support for Terrorism, the Iraqi regime was, at a minimum, aware of
al-Zarqawi’s presence in Baghdad in 2002 because a foreign government service
passed information regarding his whereabouts to Iraqi authorities in June 2002.
Despite Iraq’s pervasive security apparatus and its receipt of detailed
information about al-Zarqawi's possible location, however, Iraqi Intelligence
told the foreign government service it could not locate al-Zarqawi."page
338
 |
|
Colin Powell's U.N. presentation slide
showing Al-Zarqawi's global terrorist network.
|
Jordanian
analysis
A
Jordanian security official told the Washington Post that documents
recovered after the overthrow of Saddam
show that Iraqi agents detained some of Zarqawi's operatives but released them
after questioning. He also told the Washington Post that the Iraqis
warned the Zarqawi operatives that the Jordanians knew where they were. The
official also told the Washington Post that "'We sent many memos to
Iraq during this time, asking them to identify his position, where he was, how
he got weapons, how he smuggled them across the border,' but Hussein's
government never responded."
This
claim was reiterated by Jordanian King Abdullah II
in an interview with Al-Hayat. Abdullah revealed that Saddam Hussein had
rejected repeated requests from Jordan to hand over al-Zarqawi. According to
Abdullah, "We had information that he entered Iraq from a neighboring
country, where he lived and what he was doing. We informed the Iraqi
authorities about all this detailed information we had, but they didn’t
respond." Abdullah told the Al-Hayat that Jordan exerted "big
efforts" with Saddam’s government to extradite al-Zarqawi, but added that
"our demands that the former regime hand him over were in vain.
One
high-level Jordanian intelligence official told the Atlantic Monthly
that al-Zarqawi, after leaving Afghanistan in December 2001, frequently
traveled to the Sunni Triangle of Iraq where he expanded his network, recruited
and trained new fighters, and set up bases, safe houses, and military training
camps. He said, however, "We know Zarqawi better than he knows himself.
And I can assure you that he never had any links to Saddam."
Counterterrorism scholar Loretta Napoleoni quotes former Jordanian
parliamentarian Layth Shubaylat, a radical Islamist opposition figure, who was
personally acquainted with both Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein:
First of all, I don't think the two ideologies go together, I'm sure the former Iraqi leadership saw no interest in contacting al-Zarqawi or al-Qaeda operatives. The mentality of al-Qaeda simply doesn't go with the Ba'athist one. When he was in prison in Jordan with Shubaylat, Abu Mos'ab wouldn't accept me, said Shubaylat, because I'm opposition, even if I'm a Muslim. How could he accept Saddam Hussein, a secular dictator?
US
conclusion
A
CIA report in late 2004 concluded that there was no evidence Saddam's
government was involved or even aware of this medical treatment, and found no
conclusive evidence the regime had harbored Zarqawi. A US official told Reuters
that the report was a mix of new information and a look at some older
information and did not make any final judgments or come to any definitive
conclusions. "To suggest the case is closed on this would not be
correct," the official said." A US official familiar with the report
told Knight-Ridder that "what is indisputable is that Zarqawi was
operating out of Baghdad and was involved in a lot of bad activities."
Another U.S. official summarized the report as such: "The evidence is that
Saddam never gave Zarqawi anything."
According
to the 2004 Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence, "The CIA provided four
reports detailing the debriefings of Abu Zubaydah, a captured senior
coordinator for al-Qaida responsible for training and recruiting. Abu Zubaydah
said that he was not aware of a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida. He also
said, however, that any relationship would be highly compartmented and went on
to name al-Qaida members who he thought had good contacts with the Iraqis. For
instance, Abu Zubaydah indicated that he had heard that an important al-Qaida
associate, Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, and others had good relationships with Iraqi
Intelligence."
A
classified memo obtained by Stephen F. Hayes, prepared by Undersecretary of
Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith in response to questions posed by the
Senate Intelligence Committee as part of its investigation into prewar
intelligence, stated the following regarding al-Zarqawi:
“Sensitive reporting indicates senior terrorist planner and close al Qaeda associate al Zarqawi has had an operational alliance with Iraqi officials. As of October 2002, al Zarqawi maintained contacts with the IIS to procure weapons and explosives, including surface-to-air missiles from an IIS officer in Baghdad. According to sensitive reporting, al Zarqawi was setting up sleeper cells in Baghdad to be activated in case of a U.S. occupation of the city, suggesting his operational cooperation with the Iraqis may have deepened in recent months. Such cooperation could include IIS provision of a secure operating bases [sic] and steady access to arms and explosives in preparation for a possible U.S. invasion. Al Zarqawi's procurements from the Iraqis also could support al Qaeda operations against the U.S. or its allies elsewhere.”
The
memo was a collection of raw intelligence reports and drew no conclusions. U.S.
intelligence officials conveyed to Newsweek that the "reports [in the
memo] were old, uncorroborated and came from sources of unknown if not dubious
credibility."
The
2006 Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence concluded that Zarqawi was not a link
between Saddam and al-Qaeda: "Postwar information indicates that Saddam
Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that
the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward
Zarqawi." The report also cited the debriefing of a "high-ranking
Iraqi official" by the FBI. The official stated that a foreign government
requested in October 2002 that the IIS locate five individuals suspected of
involvement in the murder of Laurence Foley, which led to the arrest of Abu
Yasim Sayyem in early 2003. The official told the FBI that evidence of Sayyem's
ties to Zarqawi was compelling, and thus, he was "shocked" when
Sayemm was ordered released by Saddam. The official stated it "was
ludicrous to think that the IIS had any involvement with al-Qaeda or
Zarqawi," and suggested Saddam let Sayyem go because he "would
participate in striking U.S. forces when they entered Iraq." In 2005,
according to the Senate report, the CIA amended its 2004 report to conclude
that "the regime did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye
toward Zarqawi and his associates."page 91–92 An intelligence official
familiar with the CIA assessment also told Michael Isikoff of Newsweek
magazine that the current draft of the report says that while Zarqawi did
likely receive medical treatment in Baghdad in 2002, the report concludes that
"most evidence suggests Saddam Hussein did not provide Zarqawi safe haven
before the war,...[but] it also recognizes that there are still unanswered
questions and gaps in knowledge about the relationship."
The
Army's Foreign Military Studies Office website translated a letter dated August
17, 2002 from an Iraqi intelligence official. The letter is part of the
Operation Iraqi Freedom documents. The letter asks agents in the country to be
on the lookout for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and another unnamed man. Pictures of both
men were attached.
The
letter issued the following 3 directives:
- Instructing your sources to continue their surveillance of the above mentioned individuals in your area of operations and inform us once you initiate such action.
- Coordinate with Directorate 18 to verify the photographs of the above mentioned with photos of the members of the Jordanian community within your area of operations.
- Conduct a comprehensive survey of all tourist facilities (hotels, furnished apartments, and leased homes). Give this matter your utmost attention. Keep us informed.
The
documents also contain responses to this request. One response, dated August
2002, states "Upon verifying the information through our sources and
friends in the field as well as office (3), we found no information to confirm
the presence of the above mentioned in our area of operation. Please review, we
suggest circulating the contents of this message." Another response, also
dated August 2002, states "After closely examining the data and through
our sources and friends in (SATTS: U R A) square, and in Al-Qa'im immigration
office, and in Office (3), none of the mentioned individuals are documented to
be present in our area of jurisdiction."
According
to ABC News, "The letter seems to be coming from or going to Trebil, a
town on the Iraqi-Jordanian border. Follow up on the presence of those subjects
is ordered, as well as a comparison of their pictures with those of Jordanian
subjects living in Iraq. (This may be referring to pictures of Abu Musaab al Zarqawi
and another man on pages 4–6.)"
In
his book At the Center of the Storm, George Tenet writes:
... by the spring and summer of 2002, more than a dozen al-Qa'ida-affiliated extremists converged on Baghdad, with apparently no harassment on the part of the Iraqi government. They found a comfortable and secure environment in which they moved people and supplies to support Zarqawi's operations in northern Iraq.
According
to Tenet, while Zarqawi did find a safe haven in Iraq and did supervise camps
in northeastern Iraq run by Ansar
al-Islam, "the intelligence did not show any Iraqi authority,
direction, or control over any of the many specific terrorist acts carried out
by al-Qa'ida."
Doubts
about his importance
Some
people have claimed that Zarqawi's notoriety was the product of U.S. war
propaganda designed to promote the image of a demonic enemy figure to help
justify continued U.S. military operations in Iraq, perhaps with the tacit
support of jihadi elements who wished to use him as a propaganda tool or as a
distraction. In one report, the conservative newspaper Daily Telegraph
described the claim that Zarqawi was the head of the "terrorist
network" in Iraq as a "myth". This report cited an unnamed U.S.
military intelligence source to the effect that the Zarqawi leadership
"myth" was initially caused by faulty intelligence, but was later
accepted because it suited U.S. government political goals. One Sunni insurgent
leader claimed on December 11 that "Zarqawi is an American, Israeli and
Iranian agent who is trying to keep our country unstable so that the Sunnis
will keep facing occupation."
On
February 18, 2006, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr made similar charges:
“I believe he is fictitious. He is a knife or a pistol in the hands of the occupier. I believe that all three – the occupation, the takfir (i.e. the practice of declaring other Muslims to be heretics) supporters, and the Saddam supporters – stem from the same source, because the takfir supporters and the Saddam supporters are a weapon in the hands of America and it pins its crimes on them.”
On
April 10, 2006, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. military
conducted a major propaganda offensive designed to exaggerate Zarqawi's role in
the Iraqi insurgency. Gen. Mark Kimmitt says of the propaganda campaign that
there "was no attempt to manipulate the press." In an internal
briefing, Kimmitt is quoted as stating, "The Zarqawi PSYOP Program is the
most successful information campaign to date." The main goal of the
propaganda campaign seems to have been to exacerbate a rift between insurgent
forces in Iraq, but intelligence experts worried that it had actually enhanced
Zarqawi's influence. Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence
officer in Iraq and then was one of the top officers handling Iraq intelligence
issues on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned an Army meeting in
2004 that "Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you
will – made him more important than he really is, in some ways." While
Pentagon spokespersons state unequivocally that PSYOPs may not be used to
influence American citizens, there is little question that the information
disseminated through the program has found its way into American media sources.
The Washington Post also notes that "One briefing slide about U.S.
"strategic communications" in Iraq, prepared for Army Gen. George W.
Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, describes the "home
audience" as one of six major targets of the American side of the
war."
On
July 4, 2006, the US Ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad, in an interview
with the BBC, said: "In terms of the level of violence, it (the death of
al-Zarqawi) has not had any impact at this point... the level of violence is
still quite high." But Khalilzad maintained his view that the killing had
though encouraged some insurgent groups to "reach out" and join
government reconcialiation talks, he believed that previously these groups were
intimidated by Zarqawi's presence.
On
June 8, 2006, on the BBC's Question Time program, the Respect Party MP
George Galloway referred to al-Zarqawi as "a 'Boogeyman', built up by the Americans to
try and perpetrate the lie that the resistance in Iraq are by foreigners, and
that the mass of the Iraqis are with the American and British occupation".
Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times supported this saying
"several people who knew Mr. Zarqawi well, including former cellmates,
voiced doubts about his ability to be an insurgent leader, or the leader of
anything". In the July/August 2006 issue of The Atlantic, Mary Anne
Weaver doubted that the figure who beheads Nicholas Berg in the execution video
was in fact al-Zarqawi.
On
August 21, 2006, Jill Carroll, a journalist for the Christian Science
Monitor, published part 6 of her story detailing her captivity in Iraq. In
it, she describes how one of her captors, who identified himself as Abdullah
Rashid and leader of the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq, conveyed to her that
"The Americans were constantly saying that the mujahideen in Iraq were led
by foreigners...So, the Iraqi insurgents went to Zarqawi and insisted that an
Iraqi be put in charge." She continued by stating: "But as I saw in
coming weeks, Zarqawi remained the insurgents' hero, and the most influential
member of their council, whatever Nour/Rashid's position. And it seemed to me,
based on snatches of conversations, that two cell leaders under him – Abu Rasha
and Abu Ahmed – might also be on the council. At various times, I heard my
captors discussing changes in their plans because of directives from the
council and Zarqawi."
Pre-war
opportunities to kill him
According
to NBC News, the Pentagon had pushed to "take out" Zarqawi's
operation at least three times prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but had been
vetoed by the National Security Council. The council reportedly made its
decision in an effort to convince other countries to join the US in a coalition
against Iraq. "People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to
overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of pre-emption against
terrorists," said former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.
In
May 2006, former CIA official Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA's bin Laden
unit for six years before resigning in 2004, corroborated this. Paraphrasing
his remarks, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation stated Scheuer claimed
that "the United States deliberately turned down several opportunities to
kill terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the lead-up to the Iraq war." ABC
added that "a plan to destroy Zarqawi's training camp in Kurdistan was
abandoned for diplomatic reasons." Scheuer explained that "the
reasons the intelligence service got for not shooting Zarqawi was simply that
the President and the National Security Council decided it was more important
not to give the Europeans the impression we were gunslingers" in an effort
to win support for ousting Saddam Hussein.
This
claim was also corroborated by CENTCOM's Deputy Commander, Lieutenant General
Michael DeLong, in an interview with PBS on February 14, 2006. DeLong, however,
claims that the reasons for abandoning the opportunity to take out Zarqawi's
camp was that the Pentagon feared that an attack would contaminate the area
with chemical weapon materials: "We almost took them out three months
before the Iraq war started. We almost took that thing, but we were so
concerned that the chemical cloud from there could devastate the region that we
chose to take them by land rather than by smart weapons."
Reports
of his death, detention and injuries
Missing
leg
Claims
of harm to Zarqawi changed over time. Early in 2002, there were unverified
reports from Afghan Northern Alliance members that Zarqawi had been killed by a
missile attack in Afghanistan. Many news sources repeated the claim. Later,
Kurdish groups claimed that Zarqawi had not died in the missile strike, but had
been severely injured, and went to Baghdad in 2002 to have his leg amputated.
On October 7, 2002, the day before Congress voted to give President George W.
Bush authorization to invade Iraq, Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, that
repeated as fact the claim that he had sought medical treatment in Baghdad.
This was one of several of President Bush's examples of ways Saddam Hussein had
aided, funded, and harbored al-Qaeda. Powell repeated this claim in his
February 2003 speech to the UN, urging a resolution for war, and it soon became
"common knowledge" that Zarqawi had a prosthetic leg.
In
2004, Newsweek reported that some "senior US military officials in
Baghdad" had come to believe that he still had his original legs. Knight
Ridder later reported that the leg amputation was something "officials now
acknowledge was incorrect."
When
the video of the Berg beheading was released in 2004, credence was given to the
claim that Zarqawi was alive and active. The man identified as Zarqawi in the
video did not appear to have a prosthetic leg. Videos of Zarqawi aired in 2006
that clearly showed him with both legs intact. When Zarqawi's body was
autopsied, "X-rays also showed a fracture of his right lower leg."
 |
| A U.S. PSYOP leaflet disseminated in Iraq shows al-Zarqawi caught in a rat trap. Text: "This is your future, Zarqawi". |
Claims
of death
In
March 2004, an insurgent group in Iraq issued a statement saying that Zarqawi
had been killed in April 2003. The statement said that he was unable to escape
the missile attack because of his prosthetic leg. His followers claimed he was
killed in a US bombing raid in the north of Iraq. The claim that Zarqawi had
been killed in northern Iraq "at the beginning of the war," and that
subsequent use of his name was a useful myth, was repeated in September 2005 by
Sheikh Jawad Al-Khalessi, a Shiite imam.
On
May 24, 2005, it was reported on an Islamic website that a deputy would take
command of Al-Qaeda while Zarqawi recovered from injuries sustained in an
attack. Later that week the Iraqi government confirmed that Zarqawi had been
wounded by US forces, although the battalion did not realize it at the time.
The extent of his injuries is not known, although some radical Islamic websites
called for prayers for his health. There are reports that a local hospital
treated a man, suspected to be Zarqawi, with severe injuries. He was also said
to have subsequently left Iraq for a neighbouring country, accompanied by two
physicians. However, later that week the radical Islamic website retracted its
report about his injuries and claimed that he was in fine health and was
running the jihad operation.
In
a September 16, 2005 article published by Le Monde, Sheikh Jawad
Al-Kalesi claimed that al-Zarqawi was killed in the Kurdish northern region of
Iraq at the beginning of the US-led war on the country as he was meeting with
members of the Ansar al-Islam group affiliated to al-Qaeda. Al-Kalesi also
claimed "His family in Jordan even held a ceremony after his death."
He also claimed that "Zarqawi has been used as a ploy by the United
States, as an excuse to continue the occupation" and saying, "It was
a pretext so they don't leave Iraq."
On
November 20, 2005, some news sources reported that Zarqawi may have been killed
in a coalition assault on a house in Mosul; five of those in the house were
killed in the assault while the other three died through using 'suicide belts'
of explosives. United States and British soldiers searched the remains, with
U.S. forces using DNA samples to identify the dead. However, none of those
remains belonged to him.
Reportedly captured and released
According
to a CNN report dated December 15, 2005, al-Zarqawi was captured by
Iraqi forces sometime during 2004 and later released because his captors did
not realize who he was. This claim was made by a Saudi suicide bomber, Ahmed
Abdullah al-Shaiyah, who survived a failed suicide attempt to blow up the
Jordanian mission in Baghdad in December. "Do you know what has happened
to Zarqawi and where he is?" an Iraqi investigator asked Mr. Shaiyah. He
answered, "I don't know, but I heard from some of my mujahadeen brothers
that Iraqi police had captured Zarqawi in Fallujah." Mr. Shaiyah says he
then heard that the police let the terrorist go because they had failed to
recognize him. U.S. officials called the report "plausible" but
refused to confirm it.
Death
Zarqawi
was killed in a targeted killing on June 7, 2006, while attending a meeting in
an isolated safehouse approximately 8 km (5.0 mi) north of Baqubah.
At 14:15 GMT two United States Air Force F-16C jets identified the house and
the lead jet dropped two 500-pound (230 kg) guided bombs, a laser-guided
GBU-12 and GPS-guided GBU-38 on the building located at 33°48′02.83″N 44°30′48.58″E.
Five others were also reported killed. Among those killed were one of his wives
and their child.
The
story of the successful hunt for Zarqawi is told in the book How to Break a
Terrorist by Matthew Alexander (not a real name). Alexander and
his team of interrogators convinced one of Zarqawi's associates to betray him.
The
joint task force (Task Force 145)
had been tracking him for some time, and although there were some close calls,
he had eluded them on many occasions. United States intelligence officials then
received tips from Iraqi senior leaders from Zarqawi's network that he and some
of his associates were in the Baqubah area. The safehouse itself was watched
for over six weeks before Zarqawi was observed entering the building by
operators from Task Force 145. Jordanian intelligence reportedly helped to
identify his location. The area was subsequently secured by Iraqi security
forces, who were the first ground forces to arrive.
On
June 8, 2006, coalition forces confirmed that Zarqawi's body was identified by
facial recognition, fingerprinting, known scars and tattoos.[125][126] They also announced the death
of one of his key lieutenants, spiritual adviser Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman.
Initially,
the US military reported that Zarqawi was killed directly in the attack.
However, according to a statement made the following day by Major General William Caldwell
of the U.S. Army, Zarqawi survived for a short time after the bombing, and
after being placed on a stretcher, attempted to move and was restrained, after
which he died from his injuries. An Iraqi man, who claims to have arrived on the
scene a few moments after the attack, said he saw U.S. troops beating up the
badly wounded but still alive Zarqawi. In contradiction, Caldwell asserted that
when U.S. troops found Zarqawi barely alive they tried to provide him with
medical help, rejecting the allegations that he was beaten based on an autopsy
performed. The account of the Iraqi witness has not been verified. All others
in the house died immediately in the blasts. On June 12, 2006, it was reported
that an autopsy performed by the U.S. military revealed that the cause of death
to Zarqawi was a blast injury to the lungs, but he took nearly an hour to die.
The
U.S. government distributed an image of Zarqawi's corpse as part of the press
pack associated with the press conference. The release of the image has been
criticised for being in questionable taste, and for inadvertently creating an
iconic image of Zarqawi that would be used to rally his supporters.
 |
|
Remains of Zarqawi's safe house, June 8, 2006
|
 |
|
English:
Picture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shortly after his death.
See http://www.defenselink.mil/home/photoessays/2006-06/p20060608b2.html,
slide 2, caption "Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell briefs reporters in
Baghdad, June 8, 2006, on the June 7 air strike that killed terrorist Abu Musab
al Zarqawi. U.S. military officials released the photo to Caldwell's right of
the deceased Zarqawi.
|
Reactions
to death
Prime
Minister of Iraq Nuri al-Maliki commented on the death of Zarqawi by saying: "Today, Zarqawi has been terminated. Every time a
Zarqawi appears we will kill him. We will continue confronting whoever follows
his path."
United
States President George W. Bush stated that through his every action Zarqawi
sought to defeat America and its coalition partners by turning Iraq into a safe
haven for al-Qaeda. Bush also stated, "Now Zarqawi has met his end and
this violent man will never murder again."
Zarqawi's
brother-in-law has since claimed that he was a martyr even though the family
renounced Zarqawi and his actions in the aftermath of the Amman triple suicide
bombing that killed at least 60 people. The opinion of Iraqis on his
death is mixed; some believe that it will promote peace between the warring
factions, while others are convinced that his death will provoke his followers
to a massive retaliation and cause more bombings and deaths in Iraq. Abu
Abdulrahman al-Iraqi, the deputy of al-Zarqawi, released a statement to
Islamist websites indicating that al-Qaeda in Iraq also confirmed Zarqawi's
death: "We herald the martyrdom of our mujahed Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
in Iraq ... and we stress that this is an honor to our nation." In the
statement, al-Iraqi vowed to continue the jihad in Iraq.
On
June 16, 2006, Abu Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi, the head of the Mujahideen
Shura Council, which groups five Iraqi insurgent organizations including
al-Qaida in Iraq, released an audio tape statement in which he described the
death of al-Zarqawi as a "great loss." He continued by stating that
al-Zarqawi "will remain a symbol for all the mujahideen, who will take
strength from his steadfastness." Al-Baghdadi is believed to be a former
officer in Saddam's army, or its elite Republican Guard, who has worked closely
with al-Zarqawi since the overthrow of Saddam's regime in April 2003.
Counterterrorism
officials have said that al-Zarqawi had become a key part of al-Qaeda's
marketing campaign and that al-Zarqawi served as a "worldwide jihadist
rallying point and a fundraising icon." Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who
serves on the House Intelligence Committee, called al-Zarqawi "The
terrorist celeb, if you will, ... It is like selling for any organization. They
are selling the success of Zarqawi in eluding capture in Iraq."
On
June 23, 2006, Al-Jazeera aired a video in which Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader,
states that Zarqawi was "a soldier, a hero, an imam and the prince of
martyrs, [and his death] has defined the struggle between the crusaders and
Islam in Iraq."
On
June 30, 2006, Osama bin Laden released an audio recording in which he stated,
"Our Islamic nation was surprised to find its knight, the lion of jihad,
the man of determination and will, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a shameful
American raid. We pray to Allah to bless him and accept him among the martyrs
as he had hoped for." Bin Laden also defended al-Zarqawi, saying he had
"clear instructions" to focus on U.S.-led forces in Iraq but also
"for those who ... stood to fight on the side of the crusaders against the
Muslims, then he should kill them whoever they are, regardless of their sect or
tribe." Shortly after, he released another audio tape in which he stated,
"Our brothers, the mujahedeen in the al-Qaeda organization, have chosen
the dear brother Abu Hamza al-Muhajer as their leader to succeed the Amir Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi. I advise him to focus his fighting on the Americans and
everyone who supports them and allies himself with them in their war on the
people of Islam and Iraq."
Alleged
betrayal by al-Qaeda
A
day before Zarqawi was killed, a U.S. strategic analysis site suggested that
Zarqawi could have lost the trust of al-Qaeda due to his emphatic anti-Shia stance and the
massacres of civilians allegedly committed in his name. Reports in The New
York Times on June 9 treated the betrayal by at least one fellow al-Qaeda
member as fact, stating that an individual close to Zarqawi disclosed the
identity and location of Sheik Abd al-Rahman to Jordanian and American
intelligence. Non-stop surveillance of Abd al-Rahman quickly led to Zarqawi.
The
Associated Press quotes an unnamed Jordanian official as saying that the
effort to find Zarqawi was successful partly due to information that Jordan
obtained one month beforehand from a captured Zarqawi al-Qaeda operative named
Ziad Khalaf Raja al-Karbouly.
Reward
In
apparent contradiction to statements made earlier in the day by U.S. ambassador
to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, an Iraqi spokesman said the US$25 million reward
"will be honored" (although this need not mean that any money will
actually be paid, as the terms of the reward would indeed be
"honored" by having no payee if no one qualifies). Khalilzad, in an
interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, had stated the bounty would not be paid
because the decisive information leading to Zarqawi's whereabouts had been
supplied by an al-Qaeda in Iraq operative whose own complicity in violent acts
would disqualify him from receiving payment.
Rep.
Mark Kirk, a Republican of Illinois who drafted the legislation specifying the
Zarqawi reward, was quoted as saying contemporaneously that the Bush
Administration planned to pay "some rewards" for Zarqawi. "I
don't have the specifics," he stated. "The administration is now
working out who will get it and how much. As their appropriator who funds them,
I asked them to let me know if they need more money to run the rewards program
now that they are paying this out."
Post-Zarqawi
Iraq environment
Zarqawi's
death was seen a major coup for the US government in terms of the political and
propaganda stakes. However, unconfirmed rumors in early April 2006 suggested
that Zarqawi had been demoted from a strategic or coordinating function to
overseer of paramilitary/terrorist activities of his group and that Abdullah
bin Rashed al-Baghdadi of the Mujahideen Shura Council succeeded
Zarqawi in the former function. On June 15, 2006, the United States military
officially identified Abu Ayyub al-Masri
as the successor to Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
After
Zarqawi's demise in early June 2006 there was little or no immediately
identifiable change in terms of the level of violence and attacks against U.S.
and allied troops. In the immediate aftermath insurgency attacks averaged 90 a
day, apparently some of the highest on record. Four months after Zarqawi's
death, it is estimated that 374 coalition soldiers and 10,355 Iraqis have been
killed. Several insurgency groups and heads of Sunni Muslim tribes also formed
a coalition called the Mujahideen Shura Council.
By
late 2007, violent and indiscriminate attacks directed by AQI against Iraqi
civilians had severely damaged their image and caused the loss of support among
the population, isolating the group. In a major blow to AQI, thousands of
former Sunni militants that previously fought along with the group started to
actively fight AQI and also work with the American and Iraqi forces starting
with the creation of the Anbar Awakening Council because of its Anbar origins.
The group spread to all Sunni cities and communities and some Shite areas and
adopted the broader name Sons of Iraq. The Sons of Iraq was instrumental in
giving tips to coalition forces about weapons caches and militants resulting in
the destruction of over 2,500 weapons caches and over 800 militants being
killed or captured. In addition, the 30,000 strong U.S. troop surge supplied
military planners with more manpower for operations targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq,
The Mujahadeen Shura Council, Ansar Al-Sunnah and other terrorist groups. The
resulting events leading to dozens of high-level AQI leaders being captured or
killed. Al-Qaeda seemed to have lost its foothold in Iraq and appeared to be
severely crippled due to its lack of vast weapons caches, leaders, safe havens,
and Iraqis willing to support them. Accordingly, the bounty issued for Abu
Ayyub-al-Masri AKA Abu Hamza al-Muhajer was eventually cut from $5 million down
to a mere $100,000 in April 2008.
On
January 8, 2008, and January 28, 2008, Iraqi and U.S. forces launched Operation
Phantom Phoenix and the Ninawa campaign AKA the Mosul Campaign
killing and capturing over 4,600 militants and locating and destroying over
3,000 weapons caches in those 2 campaigns. Also effectively leaving AQI with 1
last major insurgent stronghold Diyala. On July 29, 2008, Iraqi, U.S. and Sons
Of Iraq forces launched Operation Augurs of Prosperity in the Diyala province
and surrounding areas to clear AQI out of its last stronghold. 2 operations
were already launched before in Diyala with mixed results and this campaign was
expected to face fierce resistance. The rustling operation left over 500
weapons caches destroyed and 5 militants killed; 483 militants were captured
due to the lack of resistance from the insurgent forces. 24 high level AQI
terrorists were killed or captured in the campaign.
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