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Behind the new face of terror
Zarqawi has operated widely. German authorities investigating the Hamburg cell after September 11 came across another terrorist group called al-Tawhid (Unity), made up mainly of Palestinian militants trained in Zarqawi's Afghan camps. Tawhid operatives told investigators they got their start in Europe selling forged documents to militants travelling between the Middle East and western Europe. With the outbreak of war in Iraq, Tawhid converted its alien-smuggling and document forgery ring into a two-way underground link between western Europe and the Middle East. According to press reports, networks in Spain, Italy and Germany send recruits into Iraq via Syria. US military officials in Iraq now blame the most heinous terrorist attacks on "the Zarqawi network". But Zarqawi's alien-smuggling system also dispatches Middle Eastern jihadis into Europe via Spain, Turkey, Italy and Greece. In November 2003, Italian wiretaps recorded two Tawhid operatives speaking of "the jihad part" and its "battalion of 25-26 units" of suicide bombers. If Zarqawi's underground railroad demonstrates the terrorist uses of illegal immigration, the investigation into the Madrid bombings reveals new connections to Zarqawi every week. Zarqawi's lieutenant, a 36-year-old Moroccan named Amer el Azizi, planned the Madrid terror and is the living link between al-Qa'ida, the Zarqawi network and the Moroccan immigrant cell that set the Madrid bombs. Azizi also organised and presided over the 2001 meeting in Spain where Mohammed Atta and al-Qa'ida leaders put the finishing touches on the September 11 plan. Azizi fled Spain in November 2001 as Spanish authorities dismantled the al-Qa'ida logistics cell. He jetted to Afghanistan via Iran, where Zarqawi's cross-border networks helped him elude the coalition. While falling in with Zarqawi, Azizi kept an eye on Spain and his Moroccan colleagues, who managed to set off bombs in Casablanca in May 2003. Shortly before the Madrid train bombings, Azizi left Iran via Turkey and slipped into Spain to witness the carnage first-hand. He is still at large. Probably the murkiest and most intriguing feature of this man of mystery is the question of Zarqawi's relations with bin Laden. Although he met with bin Laden in Afghanistan several times, the Jordanian never joined al-Qa'ida. Militants have explained that Tawhid was "especially for Jordanians who did not want to join al-Qa'ida". A confessed Tawhid member even told his interrogators that Zarqawi was "against al-Qa'ida". Shortly after September 11, a fleeing Ramzi bin al-Shibh, one of the main plotters of the attacks, appealed to Tawhid operatives for a forged visa. He could not come up with ready cash. Told that he did not belong to Tawhid, he was sent packing and eventually into the arms of the Americans. Zarqawi and bin Laden also disagree over strategy. Zarqawi allegedly constructed his Tawhid network primarily to target Jews and Jordan. This choice reflected both Zarqawi's Palestinian heritage and his dissent from bin Laden's strategy of focusing on the "far enemy" -- the US. In an audiotape released after the recent foiled gas attack in Amman, an individual claiming to be Zarqawi argued that the Jordanian Intelligence Services building was indeed the target, although no chemical attack was planned. Rather, he stated menacingly: "God knows, if we did possess (a chemical bomb), we wouldn't hesitate one second to use it to hit Israeli cities such as Eilat and Tel Aviv." The Tawhid cell uncovered in Hamburg after September 11 scouted Jewish targets, including businesses and synagogues. Zarqawi's operatives have been implicated in an attack on a Mombasa hotel frequented by Israeli tourists and an attempt to shoot down an Israeli jetliner. He is also suspected to have played a role in the Casablanca bombings of a Jewish community centre and a Spanish social club. In February 2002, a Jordanian court sentenced him in absentia to 15 years' hard labour for his involvement in a failed plot to kill American and Israeli tourists at the turn of the millennium, a scheme co-ordinated with Abu Zubaydah, a top lieutenant of bin Laden. Another Jordanian court sentenced him, again in absentia, to death for the assassination of US diplomat Laurence Foley. He is also the prime suspect in the August 2003 truck bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad. Zarqawi has been associated with other groups besides Tawhid. Most notorious is Ansar al Islam, a largely Kurdish organisation operating out of northern Iraq, which US officials have linked to al-Qa'ida. Before the war, Ansar al Islam ran chemical warfare camps in northern Iraq. Last year, British counter-terrorist investigators traced poisonous ricin found in Manchester to those camps. Zarqawi has been linked with two lesser-known al-Qa'ida splinter groups: Beyyiat el-Imam, implicated in attacks in Israel as well as the November 2003 attack on a synagogue in Turkey; and Jund al-Shams, a Syrian-Jordanian group blamed for the assassination of Foley. He has also been linked to Chechen jihadis, and Indian intelligence says he belongs to Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, a Pakistani Sunni group responsible for slaying hundreds of Shias in South Asia. The slaughter of Shias touches on another Zarqawi beef with bin Laden. While both men follow the strict code of Salafi Islam, which reckons Shias as apostates, bin Laden prides himself on being a unifying figure and has made tactical alliances with Shia groups, meeting several times with Shia militants. Zarqawi, by contrast, favours butchering Shias, calling them "the most evil of mankind . . . the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy, and the penetrating venom". US military officials hold Zarqawi responsible not only for assassinating Shia religious leaders in Iraq but also for the multiple truck bombings of a Shia religious festival in March that killed 143 worshippers. But although bin Laden and Zarqawi differ on strategy, Zarqawi too cloaks his plans for mass murder in the language of the religious zealot. To Zarqawi "religion is more precious than anything and has priority over lives, wealth and children". He considers Iraq ideal for jihad especially because "it is a stone's throw from the lands of the two holy precincts (Saudi Arabia) and the Al Aqsa (mosque, in Jerusalem). "We know from God's religion that the true, decisive battle between infidelity and Islam is in this land (greater Syria and its surroundings)." On the tape of the beheading of Berg, entitled "Sheikh Abu Musab Zarqawi executes an American with his own hands and promises Bush more", Zarqawi rages: "Where is the compassion, where is the anger for God's religion, and where is the protection for Muslims' pride in the crusaders' jails? The pride of all Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and other jails is worth blood and souls." The CIA has verified that Zarqawi himself spoke on the tape and personally beheaded Berg. Similarly, the videotaped beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in February 2002 was carried out directly by another jihadi leader, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The latter, like Zarqawi, never swore allegiance to bin Laden. In this bloodthirsty crowd it appears that slitting the throat of an American Jew wins laurels. In January 2004, Iraqi Kurds captured a message from Zarqawi in Iraq to bin Laden. Zarqawi offered bin Laden a chance to expand al-Qa'ida's role in Iraq. Victory, Zarqawi instructed, meant fomenting sectarian war between Shi'ites and Sunnis. There are no indications that bin Laden responded, and there are now signs of co-operation between some Iraqi Shia and Sunni militants. Are bin Laden and Zarqawi running competing terrorist organisations in Iraq? Zarqawi's letter is addressed to a colleague or even a potential competitor rather than to one he regards as his sheikh or emir. He offers darkly: "We do not see ourselves as fit to challenge you." Zarqawi gives bin Laden two choices: "If you agree with us . . . 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 . . . If things appear otherwise to you, we are brothers, and the disagreement will not spoil (our) friendship." Zarqawi exemplifies Sunni terrorism after September 11 and the invasion of Iraq, what some call "al-Qa'ida 2.0". The Western counter-offensive decimated al-Qa'ida's leadership, stripped the organisation of safe havens and training camps, and disrupted its command and control. Former al-Qa'ida subsidiaries became franchises, receiving inspiration from bin Laden's occasional messages but operating independently. Historically speaking, the dynamic of revolutionary movements favours the most radical faction â the Jacobins, not the Girondists, the Bolsheviks, not the Menshiviks. If this dynamic prevails in contemporary Sunni terrorism, Zarqawi represents the future. Posted by: tipper 2004-05-24 |
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