Oh, gee golly. NYT finally notices...
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian suspected of ties to Al Qaeda, is now thought likely to have played a role in at least three major car-bomb attacks in Iraq that have killed well over 100 people in the last six months, according to senior American officials. Intelligence information, including some gathered in recent weeks, has provided "mounting evidence" to suggest that Mr. Zarqawi was involved in the bombings, including the attacks in August on a Shiite mosque in Najaf and the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, and the attack in November on an Italian police headquarters.
| I think we called all those here... |
One official cautioned that the evidence stopped short of firm proof about involvement by Mr. Zarqawi. But the official said the intelligence had added significantly to concern about Mr. Zarqawi, who one official said was now "really viewed as the most adept terrorist operative in Iraq, in terms of foreigners planning terrorist activities."
| He's got lots of experience. I wonder if he's still running the European operation, or if there's a new guy? |
The indication that Mr. Zarqawi played a role in the attacks adds evidence that he has been active in Iraq since the American invasion in March. An American official said Mr. Zarqawi had been "in and out" of Iraq since March, but "at last report" was operating inside Iraq. One of Mr. Zarqawi’s top lieutenants, Hassan Ghul, a Pakistani, was arrested by Americans near the Iranian border last month, and has been interrogated by American military and intelligence officials.
| If he's known to be inside Iraq, they're probably working him pretty hard. He'll have to either get out of the country or eventually be caught... |
The American officials who described Mr. Zarqawi’s suspected role declined to discuss the nature of the information pointing to a role by Mr. Zarqawi in the bombings. But the officials included some who have been skeptical in the past of the idea that foreign militants were playing a major role in the violence in Iraq. "The fact that we got Hassan Ghul is new intelligence information," one senior American official said. "The fact that Zarqawi is a bad guy is something we’ve been saying for a long time, but we’re learning more about him."
| Learning where he hangs out is the most important thing... |
The raid on the safe house in Baghdad used by associates of Mr. Zarqawi was said by one American official to have provided valuable new evidence. The items seized included a compact disc that contained the 17-page proposal to senior leaders of Al Qaeda as well as a seven-pound block of cyanide salt, which the officials said could have spread cyanide gas within an enclosed area. "It’s likely that he was involved in at least the three bombings," an American official said of Mr. Zarqawi. The car bomb attacks were three of the most deadly in Iraq since the American invasion last March. Besides the Najaf attack, they included the Aug. 19 bombing of the United Nations headquarters, which killed 23 people, including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top United Nations envoy in Iraq; and the Nov. 12 attack on the headquarters of Italy’s paramilitary police in Nasiriya, which killed more than 30 people, including 19 Italians.
| You said that in the first paragraph. Say! Is this filler? |
Last fall, American military, intelligence and law enforcement officials said they did not know whether the August bombings were part of a coordinated campaign. At the time, they said they were wrestling with several competing theories about who might be behind them, including the possibility that they were carried out by former members of the Iraqi military or paramilitary forces. Investigators said at the time that they had not seen a common signature in the bombings, but that the attack at the United Nations headquarters and another on the Jordanian Embassy had used vehicles packed with explosives drawn from old Iraqi military stocks. American officials have not said publicly what kinds of explosives were used in the attacks in Najaf and Nasiriya.
| The car booms themselves are almost a signature... |
On Monday, senior American officials were careful to describe Mr. Zarqawi as "an associate" of Al Qaeda rather than a member. American military officials say that at least 90 percent of the attacks on United States troops are thought to have been carried out by Iraqi Sunnis opposed to the occupation. |