Does Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Really Exist ?
Excerpts from June 19, 2004 NY Times Editorial:
"When the commission studying the 9/11 terrorist attacks refuted the Bush administration's claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, we suggested that President Bush apologize for using these claims to help win Americans' support for the invasion of Iraq. We did not really expect that to happen. But we were surprised by the depth and ferocity of the administration's capacity for denial. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have not only brushed aside the panel's findings and questioned its expertise, but they are also trying to rewrite history.
Mr. Bush said the 9/11 panel had actually confirmed his contention that there were "ties" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He said his administration had never connected Saddam Hussein to 9/11. Both statements are wrong......
........Mr. Bush has also used a terrorist named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Mr. Bush used to refer to Mr. Zarqawi as a "senior Al Qaeda terrorist planner" who was in Baghdad working with the Iraqi government. But the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, told the Senate earlier this year that Mr. Zarqawi did not work with the Hussein regime, nor under the direction of Al Qaeda........"
The first published Zarqawi reference that I can find from the NY Times in that site's archive search was dated March 24, 2002,
presumably about the Oct., 2001 murder
of US diplomat Laurence Foley in Jordan.
Zarqawi was supposedly implicated in Foley's
murder, according to the Jordanians, by
two captured "assasins"........
A Feb. 2, 2003 report in the Guardian is the next oldest Zarqawi reference:
"But the question that remains unresolved is whether there is any evidence that Saddam is in bed with al-Qaeda. The answer is likely to devolve to two lines of investigation - both of which, Bush administration officials will say, lead directly from Saddam to al-Qaeda.
The first connection, Powell is certain to allege, is a one-legged Jordanian wounded in the allied bombing of Afghanistan, who the Bush administration will argue is that missing link. He is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Stories about al-Zarqawi have been carefully fed to the media, suggesting his key role as the connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam. Most of them have been unsourced. And all have been dismissed by those who have followed the career of this veteran of the global jihad, who was fighting for Islam long before the world had heard of Osama bin Laden and whose al-Qaeda credentials have, in part, been created to fulfil the agendas of those who want him for other reasons.
So it is al-Zarqawi who is credited with being al-Qaeda's chemist-in-chief - an expert in weapons of mass destruction. It is al-Zarqawi, too, who is credited with being the mastermind behind a plot to use ricin to poison food at a British military base and other Allied military sites across Europe.
What is known about the career of this master terrorist? According to Jordanian intelligence, al-Zarqawi fled Afghanistan in late 2001, first to Iran, from where he was expelled, and then to Baghdad, where he received treatment for his wounds and had his leg amputated. It was while he was in Baghdad that the old campaigner's phone calls home were intercepted by the Jordanians and passed to colleagues in US.
Jordan's interest in al-Zarqawi is twofold. The country has named him as being behind the killing of US aid official Lawrence Foley, 60, in Jordan last October, on the basis of the confessions of two involved in the killing who say al-Zarqawi supplied them with weapons and money for attacks.
There is a second version of the al-Zarqawi story, supplied by German intelligence. Here his real name is Ahmed al-Kalaylah. They say he is al-Qaeda's combat commander, appointed to orchestrate attacks on Europe, and place him among the top 25 in the al-Qaeda hierarchy.
Each version could have elements of truth but both are are at odds with the facts known about his career in terrorism. According to jihadists who knew him in Afghanistan, al-Zarqawi's CV - though vicious - is less interesting than some make out.
They say that, despite fighting in the CIA-backed war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, he does not adhere to the ideology of al-Qaeda, a view shared by the CIA. Indeed, his name does not figure on its list of the 22 most wanted Islamic terrorists and he has never been mentioned in the list of senior al-Qaeda men in bin Laden's entourage in Afghanistan.
So why has al-Zarqawi suddenly been elevated to the position of a senior bin Laden lieutenant? The answer, say some, is that the Jordanians need a figure like al-Zarqawi to clamp down on their own Islamist extremists. One London-based Islamist said: 'If you want the key to the al-Zarqawi story, then look at the source of the information. The Jordanians have wanted their own bin Laden figure for some time and he fits the profile.'
'He's just an ordinary man,' said a former Arab mujahid who fought in the Afghan war against the Russians. 'He arrived in Afghanistan in 1990 and fought against Russia in Khosht in 1991.' He said that when the Taliban stormed to power, he chose to stay and in 1999 formed a close-knit group of Jordanians linked to the traditional Islamic-resistance group, the Muslim Brotherhood.
There, al-Zarqawi ran a guesthouse in Logo, a one-hour drive west of Kabul in an area ruled by the anti-Taliban warlord Gulbedin Hekmatyar. 'He lived with a group of 30-40 Jordanians of the Muslim Brotherhood,' said the source. 'There wasn't even a training camp.'
If the link to al-Zarqawi is at best circumstantial, the second connection that the Bush administration apparently plans to develop is equally tendentious. That connection is to the al-Ansar group, which, like al-Zarqawi, is also sheltering in Kurdish northern Iraq. The leader of this group, also expected to be name checked by Powell this week, is Mullah Krekar.
His group certainly is nasty, but what baffles many is that, despite the allegations about his group, he remains at large, living unmolested by the authorities in Norway.
Unlike al-Zarqawi, Krekar can speak for himself. 'I can say to you that this is not true that I am a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda,' Krekar, 47, said in an interview in yesterday's Los Angeles Times. 'I will wait until Wednesday, and if Powell says anything against me, I can use documents to prove it is not true. Everything: that we have chemical bombs, [ties to] Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, all of those things.'
Despite claims by US officials that he is a terrorist specifically linked to al-Qaeda, they also admit they do not have the evidence to charge him, despite two interviews with the FBI.
'I told the FBI, "I can come to America and prove it's not true in your court",' said Krekar, who studied Islamic theology with a founder of al-Qaeda and has praised bin Laden. 'I am not an enemy of America.' "
And....
By Cam Simpson and Stevenson Swanson
Chicago Tribune correspondents
Published February 11, 2003
In voluminous statements given to German federal police after his April arrest, Shadi Abdallah, a 26-year-old Jordanian who claims to have served briefly as a bin Laden bodyguard, maintained that Zarqawi was allied instead with Iraq's enemy, the fundamentalist Islamic government of Iran.
Abdallah, arrested after he was overheard by police discussing weapons and munitions in a phone call with Zarqawi, later painted a picture of Zarqawi that appears to be in stark contrast to the image unveiled last week by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
It is possible that Zarqawi, who Powell said visited Baghdad for medical treatment last spring, has forged new bonds with bin Laden and Iraq since Abdallah's arrest. But in some of his 22 separate police interrogation sessions spanning seven months last year, copies of which were obtained by the Chicago Tribune, Abdallah declared that Zarqawi, a one-legged Jordanian who is now at large, had "links with all [terrorist] groups with the exception of Al Qaeda."
"He is against Al Qaeda," Abdallah said."
By Jim Miklaszewski
Correspondent
NBC News March 2, 2004
With Tuesday’s attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.
But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.
In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.....
And despite the Bush administration’s tough talk about hitting the terrorists before they strike, Zarqawi’s killing streak continues today."
By Rod Nordland
Newsweek
Updated: 3:01 a.m. ET March 7, 2004
March 6 - "The stark fact is that we don’t even know for sure how many legs Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi has, let alone whether the Jordanian terrorist, purportedly tied to al Qaeda, is really behind the latest outrages in Iraq."
BBC News Article
Confessions 6 April, 2004 - The shooting of Mr Foley outside his home was the first killing of a Western diplomat in the city.
He was shot several times in the chest and head as he walked towards his car.
Among those sentenced to death by the military court were Libyan Salem Saad bin Suweid and Jordanian Yasser Freihat, who were arrested in December 2002 and accused of carrying out the actual shooting.
They had told the court they were innocent and had been forced to confess to the crime.
The other six were sentenced to death in absentia, including Zarqawi.
Two other defendants, Mohammed Damas and Mohammed Amin, who had also pleaded not guilty, were sentenced to 15 years and six years in jail respectively. ....... "
This June 16, 2004 ABC News report places Zarqawi on the FBI's Most Wanted List, but I cannot find him there. ABC also reported:
"Attention on al-Zarqawi has increased in recent months as he became a more vocal terror figure, due in part to three recordings released on the Internet, including that of the beheading of American businessman Nicholas Berg.
Even this winter, such a profile was uncharacteristic of the 36-year-old al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian previously not known for claiming responsibility for the numerous attacks in which he's believed to have had a hand."
And..
"Intelligence officials believe al-Zarqawi has cells or links to Muslim extremists around the world, including countries he has been known to have spent time in: Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Spain, Saudi Arabia , Sudan, Syria, Pakistan and Kuwait.
Secretary of State Colin Powell has also said that al-Zarqawi and his network have plotted against countries including France, Britain, Italy, Germany and Russia.
Al-Zarqawi, whose real name is Ahmad Fadhil al-Khalayleh, joined the jihadist cause in his teens, traveling to Afghanistan to fight alongside the mujahadeen, or holy warriors, trying to prevent a Soviet occupation. The street-smart plotter is thought to have become a student of Islamic literature.
He was known as the "one-legged terrorist" because U.S. intelligence indicated he received medical treatment and was fitted with an artificial leg in Baghdad in 2002, after fleeing Afghanistan.
However, the view now is that al-Zarqawi has both legs, even though he is still believed to have traveled to Iraq for treatment for his leg or another injury, a U.S. intelligence official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Associated Press Writer Curt Anderson contributed to this report "
Bush Administration Claims That Zarqawi Sought Safe Haven in Iraq Put in Doubt - ABC News page (1) (2)
NEW YORK, Oct. 5, 2004
..."This is a murky story," said Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser. "I'm sure we'll find out more but what we do know about Zarqawi is that he knew Iraq well."
Since then, the president has subtly altered his language when discussing Zarqawi's presence in Baghdad before the war. Bush no longer maintains Zarqawi was harbored by Saddam, just that he was there."
So.... one leg or two? Terrorist killer of more than 700, or.....just a shady character in a "murky story".
The folks that carefully fed us the "Al-Zarqawi is a bogeyman" story, have not been very credible about much else that they have officially stated about Iraq. They can't seem to keep the Zarqawi story straight.
in 2002 at his "chemical weapons and terrorist training camp" in Kurdish controlled Kirmal (Khurmal).
The story had already been reported on Feb. 7, 2003. If it is true, it is another indication that Zarqawi is more of a terrorist "prop" than an actual threat:
By GREG MILLER Los Angeles Times
Friday, February 7, 2003
Washington -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spent a significant part of his presentation to the United Nations this week describing a terrorist camp in northern Iraq where al-Qaida affiliates are said to be training to carry out attacks with explosives and poisons.
But neither Powell nor other administration officials answered the question: What is the United States doing about it?
Lawmakers who have attended classified briefings on the camp say that they have been stymied for months in their efforts to get an explanation for why the U.S. has not launched a military strike on the compound near the village of Khurmal. Powell cited its ongoing operation as one of the key reasons for suspecting ties between Baghdad and the al-Qaida terror network.
The lawmakers put new pressure on the Bush administration on Thursday to explain its decision to leave the facility unharmed.
"Why have we not taken it out?" Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) asked Powell during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "Why have we let it sit there if it's such a dangerous plant producing these toxins?"
Powell declined to answer, saying he could not discuss the matter in open session.....
......Absent an explanation from the White House, some officials suggested the administration had refrained from striking the compound in part to preserve a key piece of its case against Iraq.
"This is it, this is their compelling evidence for use of force," said one intelligence official, who asked not to be identified. "If you take it out, you can't use it as justification for war."..................
......A White House spokesman said Thursday he had no immediate comment on the matter.
The administration's handling of the issue has emerged as one of the more curious recent elements of the war on terrorism. Failing to intervene appears to be at odds with President Bush's stated policy of pre-empting terrorist threats, and the facility is in an area where the U.S. already has a considerable presence.
U.S. intelligence agents are said to be operating among the Kurdish population nearby, and U.S. and British warplanes already patrol much of northern Iraq as part of their enforcement of a "no- fly" zone. "
The record of "news" reports indicates that there is no way to confirm that Al-Zarqawi is the terrorist nemesis that the Bush administration some of the time.....purports him to be.
I am skeptical that Zarqawi does exist as the formidable figure
He does.
In a self-fulfilling prophecy of Washington's claims, al-Zarqawi's did join with al-Quaeda for attacks in Iraq. A year after Powell's statements bin Laden and al-Zaqawi began talks. Eight months later, they joined forces.
November 25, 2005 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Four months before your 10-17-04 CNN report, Rumsfeld said the following at a June 17, 2004 DOD briefing:
..."The other thing I would say is that it appears -- I guess I don't know if I should say this or not, but I -- I suppose I can -- it appears that Zarqawi -- who is, everyone in the intelligence community seems to agree, is engaged as a significant leader of a network in Iraq and has in his past been identified by at least some intelligence as being a leader with respect to terrorist activities in other countries, not just Iraq -- may very well not have sworn allegiance to UBL. But he -- maybe, because 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.
  ; Now, therefore you probably -- someone could legitimately say he's not al Qaeda. On the other hand, as many people have testified to in open hearings, the linkages in the relationships and the similarities, in some cases of financing as well as methods of operation, are such that even though he may not have sworn allegiance, he clearly is someone that is doing work of a very similar nature"......
A week later, June 23, 3004 this Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek report appeared on msnbc.com
"But just last week, in little-noticed remarks, 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 a rival than a lieutenant to bin Laden."
This July 23, 2005 LA Times report, typifies the larger contradiction in what we are "being fed".
""We have to make certain assumptions for planning. Because the number of incidents and indicators have been relatively stable, we must assume that will hold true for the next several months, absent a diplomatic and a political breakthrough" with insurgents, Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the commander of coalition forces in Iraq, said in an interview.
Vines and three other senior officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because their comments reflected ongoing military and intelligence operations, outlined an updated picture of an insurgency increasingly driven by a small minority of foreign fighters carrying out bolder and deadlier bombings under the leadership of Jordanian Al Qaeda figure Abu Musab Zarqawi.....
......Although the insurgency could sustain itself in the short term, with an estimated 100 to 200 foreign fighters entering the country from Syria each month, the commanders said evidence suggested that the insurgents could be running low on funds. Izzat Ibrahim, a fugitive general loyal to Saddam Hussein, recently asked other sympathizers of the ousted dictator to give money to the insurgency, the officials said. Ibrahim is believed to have operated out of Syria, they said.
However, a senior Western diplomat familiar with the region said in late spring that the insurgency "had hundreds of millions of dollars" at its disposal, and would be able to continue operations for years to come. Hussein's first wife, Sajida Khairallah Telfah, is considered a "major financier" of the opposition, funneling funds through Syria, the defense officials said.
As some insurgents from Zarqawi's group and Hussein sympathizers use Syria as a haven, the defense officials said, they also have shown an interest in reasserting control over Fallouja, in western Iraq."
So, one day Zarqawi is Qaeda....and the next he is a rival. One day his terrorist group is running low on funds, but...maybe not.
I feel safe, for now, doubting that Zarqawi is the major threat that our government has told us he is.
November 25, 2005 9:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, one day Zarqawi is Qaeda....and the next he is a rival.
...typifies the larger contradiction in what we are "being fed".
November 26, 2005 7:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Host, it isn't safe.
There's a difference between receiving news directly from al-Zaqawi and bin Laden and the folks in Washington.
First person beats third anyday.
angela, W. Patrick Lang, retired DIA middle east intelligence expert and green beret colonel, states my reaction to your acceptance of this "news", more convincinly than I am able to:
"No! No! Zarqawi did not make himself the "face" of the insurgent war in Iraq. WE did! By we, I mean all the journalists, spinmasters, sycophantic generals, tourist politicians and deluded Jacobin ideologues who keep insisting that he personifies the Global War on Terror (GWOT) in its Iraq manifestation....."
BBC's security correspondent reacted to the 10/17/05 CNN report that you posted with much more skepticism than CNN showed:
By Gordon Corera
BBC security correspondent 18 October, 2004
".....A 17 October statement posted on an Islamist website claims to be from the Tawhid and Jihad group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It begins with a personal pledge of allegiance from Zarqawi and his fighters to Osama Bin Laden. But what is the evidence for his relationship with al-Qaeda - and for his status as the mastermind of the Iraq insurgency? The statement has not been authenticated and . .......
....Some had even begun to suggest that with Osama Bin Laden now strangely absent from the scene for a prolonged period, Zarqawi could become the new figurehead of the global jihadist movement.
This makes any pledge of loyalty an interesting development. But tracing the history of contacts between Zarqawi and al-Qaeda involves navigating some murky waters.
The Bush administration has been claiming a link between Zarqawi and Bin Laden for a long time but not always with
much success.
Zarqawi first came to prominence just before the start of the Iraq war when, in Colin Powell's presentation before the UN Security Council, Zarqawi's presence in Iraq was portrayed as proof of a link between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda. ...........
........... But some question whether he could really be organising much of the rest of the insurgency.
It is helpful though for the US to personalise the insurgency and emphasise the role of foreign fighters because it makes the link to al-Qaeda, obscuring the sense of a nationalist uprising against American "occupation".
It is not just a question of others perhaps exaggerating his role. Zarqawi himself has proved adept at playing the media.
He has used video messages and taken hostages to maximise the impact of his actions - spreading fear but also elevating his own position as the visible leader of opposition to the US and interim government.
With estimates of the numerical strength of Tawhid and Jihad running from 20 to 500, its unlikely to be the motor behind the lower-profile attacks that make up the bulk of the insurgency..........."
Disinformation, contradictions, a consistant stream of inaccurate statements about Al Zarqawi, preceding, but including Powell's Feb., 2003 UN presentation, and absurdities such as the following "tally" of news reports of U.S. "progress" in hunting down the bogeyman:
"Below is an almost comprehensive list (I'm sure I missed a few) of Zarqawi's "top lieutenants" we've captured, killed, or acknowledged over the last two and a half years. I count 33."
Lastly, consider the context in which Al Zarqawi "announced" his allegiance to Al Qaeda. It was 20 days before the 2004 U.S. election. Bush and Cheney had been using rhetoric that threatened more Al Qaeda attacks that Kerry was less able to protect us from. Pundits on the right were demanding a revenge attack on Fallujah. A message was sent by the hieracrhy of civilian Fallujah that denied that Zarqawi was in the city. Iraqi interim Prime Minister Allawi was pressing for an attack on Fallujah by US forces to "capture" Al Zarqawi as soon as the US election was over.
Who benfited from a campaign to heighten the potenitla threat of Al Zarqawi and Al Qaeda in Iraq, and in the world, on Oct. 17, 2004? There was a need to paint Bush-Cheney as the protectors of the US people, a need to justify the destruction of Fallujah....but it could wait until after the election, and an immediate need to blunt any public reaction to the letter that denied that Zarqawi existed in Fallujah, and the general need to refresh the spin that the US occupation force in Iraq was fighting them over there, so that they did not have to fight them "here".
CNN's Al Zarqawi "report" was announced at a very opportune moment, as was the "Bin Laden" video, two weeks later. What has the Bush administration been correct about, angela, or the MSM, for that matter, to give you such faith in what they report as "fact"?
November 27, 2005 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink