Zarqawi shenanigans - Terror backstory?

Iraqi security forces captured Al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi last year but released him because they did not know who he was, He was arrested more than one year ago in Fallujah by Iraqi police

Now it is being reported that he is noi longer leader of the Iraqi Al queda insurgency! Terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has sharply lowered his profile in recent months, halting his group's Internet claims as the number of big suicide bombings in Iraq" his infamous signature form of attack" has fallen.

Now, Huthayafa Azzam, believed to have close ties to Iraqi militants, claims al-Zarqawi was shunted aside as political leader of a recently formed coalition of militants because they were angry at his propaganda efforts and embarrassed by his group's deadly attack on hotels in Jordan. The new political leader of the coalition of insurgent groups - of which Zarqawi is part - is Abdullah al-Baghdadi, Mr Azzam said. He said that the move was in part prompted by embarrassment at Zarqawi's attacks on other countries, such as last year's hotel bombings in Jordan, and his use of brutal tactics, such as videotaped beheadings.

Al-Qaeda influence in Iraq reportedly overstated

Big News Network.com Sunday 9th April, 2006

The U.S. military is waging a propaganda campaign in Iraq to play up the influence of an al-Qaida leader, The Washington Post reported.

Citing military documents and officers familiar with the program, the newspaper said the campaign is intended to magnify the role of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. Some military intelligence officials believe the campaign may have overstated Zarqawi's importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war in Iraq to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have carried out deadly bombing attacks, but Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and handled Iraq intelligence issues for the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff told Army officers last summer that Zarqawi was a very small part of the actual numbers in the insurgency, the Post said.

The Post said Harvey told the officers: "Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will -- made him more important than he really is, in some ways."

"The long-term threat is not Zarqawi or religious extremists, but these former regime types and their friends."

Rumsfeld Suggests bin Laden, Zarqawi Manipulating U.S. Press

Transcript from The Rush limbaugh show:

RUSH: We are thrilled and honored to have with us the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, for a few minutes. Mr. Secretary, thank you for making some time available for us.

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, thank you! I'm delighted to do it.

RUSH: Well, let me ask you... I've got to remind you of something. You probably won't remember the phone call to this program. It was the first time I spoke to you and it was early on in the first term of President Bush, and at the time, I forget the subject. It might have been the artillery weapon that you had voted down, but --

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: (Laughing.) I remember it well. The Crusader!

RUSH: The Crusader, but at the time it was shortly after a couple of very successful operations militarily. You were being hailed as a sex symbol in Washington, and I asked you about that. You were clearly embarrassed. You laughed and so forth.

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: (Laughing.)

RUSH: Today it's a far different circumstance, and it's a great illustration of just how things work inside the Beltway. What does it feel like to you to go through these ups and downs and to have practically the entire media jump on the case of these six generals demanding your ouster?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, you know, "This, too, will pass." I think about it, and I must say, there's always two sides to these things, and the sharper the criticism comes, sometimes the sharper the defense comes from people who don't agree with the critics, and I've been very pleased to see General Dick Myers and General Tommy Franks and General Mike DeLong and so many others -- Admiral Vern Clark -- step up, and people who I have worked very closely with, and they've been terrific. So I'm here at the Pentagon doing my job, working on transformation and seeing that we manage the force in a successful way, and working on things involving Iraq. For example, they just transferred over some important real estate to the Iraqi security forces today, had a ceremony which is a sign of progress there. Now what we need to see is a new government formed in Iraq.

RUSH: Let me ask you about -- before I get to that, you mentioned General Myers and Mike DeLong and others that have come to your defense. They seem to be contradicting point by point the criticism. The criticism of you is that you're autocratic, that you don't listen, that you're inflexible, that you're stubborn, and the details that they're all providing counter that specifically. So why are these guys doing it now? What do you think?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, I just don't know. I can't climb into other people's minds. I was amused that Admiral Vern Clark said, "Yes, he is tough and these are tough times and we need people in government who are tough-minded and feel a sense of urgency." So I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

RUSH: Iraq. Your assessment, obviously, with the news that you just gave us is it's much better there than it's being reported, and I assume that you're optimistic about the final outcome. You say we've just got to get them to create a government. Some people think that it might be better just to launch an all-out assault on the enemy and defeat the enemy and then set up the government so you wouldn't have so many distractions and attempts to oppose that effort.

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, of course it would be wonderful if there were an enemy that was in reasonable clusters of people that you could go after them. The problem is that you don't have a big army, navy or air force that you can go after. These are terrorists. These are insurgents. These are people that hide in the shadows. These are people that kill innocent men, women and children. They are not people that confront anybody in a formal way that you could go after. So what you have to do is create a presence, have a lot of tip lines so calls can come in and people who are supportive of the country and the progress that's being made can phone into the Iraqi security forces or our forces and tell them where the bad people are and then you just have to go root 'em out one or two at a time.

RUSH: How would you describe the process and the progress there?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, the progress has been good. I mean, we are now up to a quarter of a million Iraqi security forces and they're, as I say, taking over more and more bases and real estate all the time -- and we're able to transfer responsibility to them. The biggest problem we've got right now is that the people that were the people who voted in the last election, on December 15th, are now waiting for the results of that election to be manifested in a new government, and the politicians over there are struggling with that. They're trying to figure out who should be prime minister and who should be the president and who should be the various ministers, and it's taken from December 15th until today, and we're hopeful that in the next period of days, they'll pull it together. More and more, the leadership in the Kurdish community, the Sunni community and now in the Shi'a community are saying, "Let's get it done." I think it's important that the security forces that we've trained and equip have a government that they can report to and look up to and receive guidance and leadership from.

RUSH: So is there an organized opposition within those three groups to prevent this government from being formed that has a chance of succeeding?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, I mean, there's no question. You're quite right. The insurgents do not want the government formed, and there are elements in the country that are actively trying to prevent that, just as they tried to prevent the election last, a year ago January. They've tried to prevent the referendum on the constitution, and they tried to prevent the December elections -- and now they're trying to prevent the government from being formed. But they failed the first three times, and they're going to fail this time. We're going to get it done.

RUSH: Let me ask you this question. You've been in the private sector and you've had plenty of public service in various positions in our government, and you've devoted your life largely to public service, and you're very much aware of our representative republic and democratic process here. We have people in the country who have been attempting, ever since shortly after the war with Iraq commenced, that are trying to gin up as many anti-war support amongst the American population as possible. Yet here you are as a member of this administration with a stated goal where Iraq and the war on terror is concerned. You have to be aware of it anti-war opinion of those in the country who have it and you're aware of the people who are trying to foment it and make it larger. How do you as a public servant square the attitude of the anti-war people if you think it's a large group of people with what are your stated goals and what the president stated goals are? How do you put those two together and end up formulating a policy and sticking to it?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: That's a very important question, and I guess only someone who's rooted in the history of our country, I think, could accept the kinds of comments that are being made -- and if we recognize that the same kinds of criticism that occurred in the Revolutionary War and World War I and World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, it's not new. There have always been people who have opposed wars. Wars are terrible things. On the other hand, if every time there were critics and opponents to war, we wouldn't have won the Revolutionary War and we wouldn't have been involved in World War I or II, and if we had we would have failed, and our country would be a totally different place if it existed at all, if every time there were some critics that we tossed in the towel. I think we just have to accept it, that people have a right to say what they want to say, and to have an acceptance of that and recognize that the terrorists, Zarqawi and bin Laden and Zawahiri, those people have media committees.

They are actively out there trying to manipulate the press in the United States. They are very good at it. They're much better at (laughing) managing those kinds of things than we are, and we have to recognize that we're not going to lose any battles out in the global war on terror out in Iraq or Afghanistan. The center of gravity of that war is right here, and in the capital of the United States of America and other Western capitals, in London, they're trying. It's a test of wills, and what's at stake for our country is our way of life. They want to strike at the very essence what we are. We're free people, and our task in government, by golly, is to help protect the American people from people who killed 3,000 people here on September 11th and killed people in London and Madrid and Bali, and country after country around the world who have no problems beheading people and murdering innocent men, women and children.

RUSH: Well, it's gotta be tough, I would imagine, because I'm aware of it and I try to share with my audience as often as possible that people like you and the president know far more than the public knows about any number of events simply because it's not possible for the information that you learn to be shared nor should most of it, and yet that would have to force you at some point to say, "You know, we do have an anti-war crowd and they're loud and they're being affected by our enemy. But the American people, some of them, just don't know what we know," and you have to stick with what you think is right, and that's where the whole democratic process I would think becomes challenging for you because you have to make a judgment: Do what's right or we listen to the people?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Yeah. Of course if you started chasing, running around chasing public opinion polls or a handful of people who are critics of this or critics on that, you wouldn't get anywhere in this world. We need people like President Bush who are serious people, who spend a great deal of time thinking through direction for our country, set us on that course and then have the courage and the perseverance to stay on that course.

RUSH: Before you go -- and I know time is short and I've got to break, too -- but I know you're very supportive of a website that DOD has put up, "America Supports You" dot military, dot mil. What does that website help people do?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: You know we've got such wonderful men and women out there, troops out there serving our country. They're all volunteers. So what we did is we put together a website whereby anyone who wants to can get on it and find out what other people are doing to be supportive of the troops and their families, and you can learn what school groups are doing, what corporations are doing, families, nongovernmental organizations. They are just hundreds of people who are out there doing things that are supportive of the troops and letting them know that we appreciate their service, their noble service, for our country.

RUSH: Okay, terrific. Well, we'll continue to plug that here. Let me amend it. Let me ask you one final question. Somebody on my staff is curious to know what your opinion is of embedding reporters with the military. Has that worked? Has that worked as you had hoped?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, it has. It worked during the Iraq conflict, and a lot of people who are reporters and journalists were able to work with our troops and see precisely how terrific they are, the wonderful job they do, the kinds of people they are, how professional they are -- and the rest of their lives they're going to have an impression of the American military that will be good for journalism, in my view. Furthermore, they were able, because they were embedded, to see and then give the world and the people of the United States a slice of what was actually happening, real reality, and it was a good thing. More recently, very few people had been being embedded. We're still offering that opportunity, but there have been far fewer journalists who have stepped up to become embedded.

RUSH: Why do you think that is (story)?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, it's a funny thing. I asked one reporter about that, and there was kind of the impression left that, "Well, if you got embedded then you were really part of the problem instead of part of the solution and you were almost going over to the other side," argument. I think that's an inexcusable thought, and I don't know if that's the case.

RUSH: That's outrageous.

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: It is. (Laughing.)

RUSH: It's outrageous. I'll say it.

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: (Laughing.)

RUSH: I can't believe that. Well, look, I thank you so much for your time. I don't want to cause your schedule to get backlogged anymore. We always appreciate whatever time you have for us. I met you a couple weeks ago in New York and I forgot to tell you something. I had so many people -- as I mentioned I was going to be at the Marine dinner, and I had so many people -- in my audience tell me to be sure to tell you how much they love and respect what you're doing. So let me do it now.

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: That means a lot to me and I thank you so much, and I thank you for what you do.

RUSH: Well, thank you, sir. I appreciate it. That's Secretary -- It embarrasses me when I get thanked. That's Secretary Rumsfeld, at the Pentagon, the Department of Defense.

END TRANSCRIPT

Zarqawi back on video

In a rare video posted on the Internet, al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and said any government formed in Iraq would be merely a "stooge." He also mocked the U.S. military in Iraq for what he called suicides, drug-taking and mutinies, and he warned that "worse" attacks were to come. The video, released just days after Iraq named a new prime minister and a high-profile audiotape from bin Laden appeared on Arab TV, seemed a deliberate attempt by al-Zarqawi to claim the spotlight again following months of taking a lower profile. It also came just one day after a triple bombing at a resort in Egypt that killed at least 24 people, including 21 Egyptians and three foreigners. The video was believed the first to show al-Zarqawi's face. The bearded, black-clothed terrorist leader, thought to be about 40, was in a flat desert landscape, dotted with scrub brush as if after a spring rain, that looked startlingly like Iraq's western Anbar province.

Iraq Terror Chief Rejects New Government

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press [26 April 2006] BAGHDAD, Iraq -

Terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi revealed his face for the first time Tuesday in a dramatic video in which he dismissed Iraq's new government as an American "stooge" and called it a "poisoned dagger" in the heart of the Muslim world.

The video, in which he also warned of more attacks to come, was posted on the Internet only days after a breakthrough in Iraq's political process allowing its Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders to start assembling a government.

It also followed a high-profile audiotape from Osama bin Laden and seemed a deliberate attempt by al-Zarqawi to reclaim the spotlight following months of taking a lower profile amid criticism of bombings against civilians. It was his first message since January.

A U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity in compliance with office policy, said analysts believe al-Zarqawi is showing his face to demonstrate that he is still engaged as a leader of jihad, or holy war.

The message also appeared to be an attempt by the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq to rally Iraqis and foreign fighters to his side at a time when U.S. and Iraqi officials are touting political progress as a setback to insurgents.

Al-Zarqawi appeared in the 30-minute video, which he said was made Friday, dressed head-to-toe in black with a black scarf around his head and a beard and mustache. He seemed healthy, shown in one scene standing and firing a heavy machine gun in a flat desert landscape that resembled the vast empty stretches of western Iraq, where he is believed to be hiding. He delivered his statement, sitting inside with an ammunition vest hung from his neck and an automatic rifle propped nearby.

Al-Zarqawi addressed Sunni Arabs in Iraq and across the Arab world, warning that their community was in danger of being caught between "the Crusaders and the evil Rejectionists," the terms used by radical Sunnis for the Americans and the Shiites.

"God almighty has chosen you (Sunnis) to conduct holy war in your lands and has opened the doors of paradise to you ... So mujahedeen, don't dare close those doors," he said. "They are slaughtering your children and shaming your women." Any new government - "whether made up of the hated Shiites or the secular Zionist Kurds or the collaborators imposed on the Sunnis - will be stooges of the Crusaders and will be a poisoned dagger in the heart of the Islamic nation," he said.

He trumpeted the success of the insurgency, saying "when the enemy entered into Iraq, their aim was to control Iraq and the area. But here we have been fighting them for the last three years." He addressed President Bush, telling him, "By God, you will have no peace in the land of Islam." "Your dreams will be defeated by our blood and by our bodies. What is coming is even worse," he said.

A U.S. intelligence official, who also declined to be identified in compliance with office policy, said a technical analysis had determined that the voice on the tape was al-Zarqawi's.

Al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for some of the bloodiest suicide bombings in Iraq since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein and for the beheadings and killings of at least 10 foreign hostages, including three Americans and a Briton. The U.S military has put a $25 million bounty on his head.

He has made several audiotapes with similar messages, but the last time video in which al-Zarqawi was believed to have appeared was one released on May 11, 2004, in which U.S. intelligence says he is a masked figure shown beheading American Nicholas Berg with a knife. His face is not visible.

Arab television network aired portions of the tape at the same time that Iraq's government-owned TV broadcast an interview with the Prime Minister-designate Jawad al-Maliki, who called for Iraq's sharply divided Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to unite in a front against terrorism. "If we can reach unity between all the components of the people, the canals of terrorism will dry up," al-Maliki said.

If made on Friday, the tape came three days before a triple bombing at a resort in Egypt that killed at least 24 people, including 21 Egyptians and three foreigners.

It was believed to be the first time al-Zarqawi's group has released a video showing his face, said Ben Venzke, head of IntelCenter, an Alexandria, Va.-based firm that provides counterterrorism intelligence services to the U.S. government. The counterterrorism official said U.S. intelligence still believes that al-Zarqawi is in Iraq and there was no evidence the video was linked to either the Egypt bombings or the bin Laden video.

A video, rather than an audio, is thought to increase the risk to the speaker, he said.

One or two pictures of al-Zarqawi's face have circulated on Islamic militant Web sites before, and he appeared in a video of his sister's wedding in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

U.S. and Iraqi troops hunting al-Zarqawi also have several old photos of him at their checkpoints - some showing him bearded, others showing a younger, softer face. Wanted posters offering a $25 million reward are kept at checkpoints across Iraq - with several photos showing al-Zarqawi at different stages of his life.

Iraqi security forces detained al-Zarqawi in Fallujah in 2004 but released him after a few hours because they didn't realize who he was, deputy interior minister Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal said last year.

The footage showed al-Zarqawi and about two dozen insurgents undergoing combat training together.

In another scene, he sat indoors with masked lieutenants and a man identified in a caption as the insurgent commander for Iraq's western province of Anbar. The men, sitting on traditional Arab cushions and mats, were discussing strategy over a large map spread on the ground. Only his face was shown.

Al-Zarqawi had taken a low profile in recent months after al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for a Nov. 9 triple bombing in Amman, Jordan, that killed 60 people, most Sunni Arabs. That attack raised a backlash against the militant leader. His tribe in Jordan renounced him, and even some extremist leaders criticized the shedding of civilian blood.

In January, al-Zarqawi's group said in a Web statement that it had joined five other Iraqi insurgent groups to form the Mujahedeen Shura Council, or Consultative Council of Holy Warriors. Since then, al-Zarqawi's group stopped issuing its own statements.

Tuesday's video was issued under the aegis of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, whose logo appeared on the screen, along with the black flag logo of al-Qaida in Iraq.

London-based security consultant Charles Shoebridge also said the video could be an attempt by al-Zarqawi to shore up his standing among insurgents.

"He appeared to have a sense of mystique by never showing his face ... (The video) could well be motivated by the perceived weakening of his position within the insurgency," Shoebridge, a former counterterrorism officer with London's Metropolitan police and an ex-British Army intelligence officer, told The Associated Press.

It also may seek to undermine Sunni Arabs participating in the government, "which he would see as a great threat to the future of the insurgency and as further marginalizing both him and al-Qaida sections of the insurgency," he said. Associated Press reporters Salah Nasrawi in Cairo, Egypt, and Katherine Shrader in Washington contributed to this report. - Yahoo AP

US airs Zarqawi blooper video

Correspondents in Baghdad May 06, 2006 - AP, Reuters

ABU Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, is shown wearing American tennis shoes and unable to operate his automatic rifle in a video released yesterday by the US military as part of a propaganda war aimed at undercutting the image of the terrorist leader.

US authorities also announced that 31 "foreign fighters" had been killed since April and 161 al-Qa'ida in Iraq leaders had been killed or captured since January, seriously crippling the group's logistical abilities.

The video - discovered during a series of raids in April on purported al-Qa'ida in Iraq safe houses in the Youssifiyah area, 20km southwest of Baghdad - painted a picture of Zarqawi that the Jordanian-born militant chose not to show the world, US command spokesman Major General Rick Lynch said.

Zarqawi was "very proud of the fact that he can operate this machinegun, and he proclaims that ... all of his close associates are very proud of what Zarqawi does", Major General Lynch said in a press briefing during which he aired a snippet from the video posted by militants on April 25.

But as the new footage was shown, Major General Lynch mocked Zarqawi for wearing sneakers. He also suggested Zarqawi was unable to fire a weapon.

"What he didn't show you were the clips that I showed you: wearing New Balance sneakers with his uniform, surrounded by supposedly competent subordinates who grab the hot barrel of a just-fired machinegun ... a warrior leader, Zarqawi, who doesn't understand how to operate his weapons system.

"It makes you wonder."

In the version that appeared on the internet, Zarqawi swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and said any government formed in Iraq would be a "stooge".

He also mocked the US military in Iraq for what he described as suicides, drug use and mutinies, and warned of worse attacks to come.

Major General Lynch, who described the earlier video as "an act of desperation," declined to specify exactly where or when the footage was found.

But he said it was discovered during a number of raids on insurgent safe houses in the Youssifiyah area beginning on April 8, and which also stretched slightly north of Baghdad. Those raids led to the deaths of 31 suspected "foreign fighters", which accounts for 90per cent of the suicide bombers used by al-Qa'ida in Iraq.

Major General Lynch said it was "only a matter of time until Zarqawi is taken down".

"Zarqawi is zooming in on Baghdad - we are zooming in on Zarqawi," he said.

The video release came amid more violence, with a roadside bomb killing nine people and wounding 46 near a Baghdad courthouse on Thursday as prime minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki met political blocs on the formation of a unity government Washington hopes will avert a sectarian civil war.

Major General Lynch said US operations against Zarqawi had dramatically cut the number of suicide attacks in the country from an average of 75 per month to fewer than 25 per month.

"We believe that he is getting facilitation for foreign fighters and funds out of Syria" and that his focus is the Baghdad area, Lynch said.

"Baghdad is his centre of gravity," he said.

That belief was supported by a series of documents also seized in the Youssifiyah area raids, a staging area for the suicide attacks, he said.

The documents spelled out Zarqawi's strategy in Iraq: to focus on the Baghdad region and target the Shia majority while reducing the number of attacks in Sunni areas.

"He is clearly trying to drive a wedge between the sectarian population here inside of Iraq, and he is focused on the Shi'ite community," said Major General Lynch. "He says the Shia population in Baghdad is his primary target."