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| Iraq |
| US mocks Zarqawi with his own video |
| 2006-05-05 |
| The videotape released last week by the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi showed him firing long bursts from a machine gun, his forearms sprouting from beneath black fatigues, as he exuded the very picture of a strong jihadist leader. But in clips the American military released on Thursday and described as captured outtakes from the same video, Mr. Zarqawi, head of the Council of Holy Warriors, cut a different figure. In one scene, Mr. Zarqawi, the most wanted terrorist in Iraq, appears flummoxed by how to discharge the machine gun in fully automatic mode. Off camera, one aide is heard ordering another, "Go help the sheik." A man walks over and fiddles with the weapon so Mr. Zarqawi can fire it in bursts. Another sequence shows Mr. Zarqawi handing the weapon off to other aides and striding away, revealing white jogging shoes beneath his black guerrilla attire. One insurgent later appears to grab the machine gun absent-mindedly by its scalding-hot barrel and drop it. In an effort to turn Mr. Zarqawi's own propaganda against him by mocking him as an uninspiring poseur, the American military released the selected outtakes at a news briefing in Baghdad. A senior military spokesman said that American troops had discovered the tape among a trove of information captured last month in Yusufiya, a town just south of Baghdad regarded as sympathetic to the insurgency. Documents found in that raid also laid out a plan to "cleanse" Shiites from Sunni-dominated areas in Iraq and to provoke sectarian warfare, according to the American military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch. Intelligence and military officials in Washington said that Mr. Zarqawi, who was once thought to be roaming western and northern Iraq, was tracked to Yusufiya after tips indicated that his men had been behind the downing of an Apache helicopter near there in April. During an early morning raid on a suspected safe house in the town just south of Baghdad on April 16, soldiers killed five occupants and captured five more in a fierce gunfight. The officials said they were later told by Iraqis captured in the raid that Mr. Zarqawi was only blocks away at the time. General Lynch added that in several raids in the area, soldiers killed at least 31 foreign fighters, possibly destined to become suicide bombers. The video outtakes and the plans to drive out Shiites, among other documents, were found in the house, General Lynch said, confirming an account first reported in Army Times. Mr. Zarqawi, a Sunni, long ago declared war on Shiites, whom he considers apostates. The captured documents disclosed at the carefully orchestrated news briefing described a plan to "reduce the attacks on Sunni areas" and instead "be dedicated to cleansing them, calmly, of spies and Shias," according to the American military's translation. The goal, they said, is to "move the battle to the Shia depths and cut off the paths from them by any means necessary to put pressure on them to leave their areas." The captured documents further suggested a strategy, perhaps temporary, of shifting the terrorist group's firepower away from attacks on American forces in Sunni regions to attacks in the capital. "We will leave or reduce our operations against them in our areas for the near future, and will perform our work against them in the areas of Baghdad itself, as well as the surrounding areas," the military's translation said. General Lynch said that even as Mr. Zarqawi was "zooming in on Baghdad, we're zooming in on Zarqawi, and it's focused now in Yusufiya, in the areas around Baghdad." "Zarqawi's center of gravity for his operations are in Baghdad," the general said. "We believe it's only a matter of time until Zarqawi is taken down. It's not if, but when." But the military has made such predictions before, only to have Mr. Zarqawi slip away from them. Moreover, officials' view of Mr. Zarqawi as the main architect of violence in Iraq is more convenient than the possibility that much of the mayhem is committed not by foreign jihadists but by Iraqi-born Sunni Arabs. Questioned on Thursday about how much insurgent activity is actually directed by Mr. Zarqawi, General Lynch acknowledged that "there's no pure science here." "So for me to give you some mathematical formula that says this many belong to Zarqawi, and this many belong to the Iraqi rejectionists, and this many belong to the Saddamists, I can't do," he said. The torture and killing of men believed to be the latest victims of sectarian violence have continued unabated in the capital. On Thursday, at least 9 Iraqis were killed and 44 wounded when a suicide bomber attacked a crowd outside a courthouse in Baghdad. The attack followed the discovery a day earlier of the bodies of about three dozen men dumped around Baghdad. All had been tortured and shot in the head. Several reports also said several civilians were killed in Ramadi by American forces on Thursday. The military said it killed eight insurgents there after marines were attacked by rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire. Two American soldiers were also killed Thursday morning by a roadside bomb in south central Baghdad. Mr. Zarqawi and his organization have taken responsibility for scores of car bombings, beheadings and other atrocities, many of which have been videotaped, posted on the Internet and shown on Arab satellite television channels. The selected outtakes released late Thursday were not shown on the most popular Arab channels, Al Jazeera and Arabiya, although Arabiya mentioned them in a newscast later. But they were broadcast on state-run Iraqi television. In releasing the outtakes, the American military sought to show that Mr. Zarqawi is a phony who cannot even fire a basic infantry weapon without help and who walks around the desert in comfortable Western jogging shoes. "What you saw on the Internet was what he wanted the world to see," General Lynch said. "Look at me, I'm a capable leader of a capable organization, and we are indeed declaring war against democracy inside of Iraq, and we're going to establish an Islamic caliphate." "What he didn't show you were the clips that I showed, wearing New Balance sneakers with his uniform, surrounded by supposedly competent subordinates who grab the hot barrel of a just-fired machine gun," he said. "We have a warrior leader, Zarqawi, who doesn't understand how to operate his weapon system and has to rely on his subordinates to clear a weapon stoppage," the general said. "It makes you wonder." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #12 Let the mockery commence Yee haw! Before you know it, we'll be mocking them for having a back-assward culture that has produced nothing in the way of science, literature, music or art in the last half dozen centuries. Nothing other than corpses or fatwahs, that is. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2006-05-05 23:28 |
| #11 Let the mockery commence---- I had recommended this in a post a couple of years ago. We need to laugh at these goons, laugh long and heartily... and I do so hope this tape is airing on Al-Jazeera... frequently. |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2006-05-05 14:07 |
| #10 "Do as I say, not as I do!" *snark* |
| Posted by: Dar 2006-05-05 12:56 |
| #9 This flat head killer's speciality is beheading trussed up, held down infidels, yet not knowing that an MG needs recocking when it stops firing unintentionally takes the top pot. Again here he needed assistance for the task. And also swung the barrel at his own cheering sidekick.... Perhaps to prove their willingness to die that way too. |
| Posted by: Duh! 2006-05-05 12:32 |
| #8 Don't forget to add insulting cartoon footage to the final tape. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-05-05 11:36 |
| #7 appears flummoxed Flummoxed? I know flummoxed. I know "mocking" too! Got a certificate and a "GO" in my job book for both in fact. Send him to me... let the flumoxing begin. |
| Posted by: SPC Lindy England 2006-05-05 11:04 |
| #6 Brilliant Psyops move...this is the "blaring insults from Humvees" approach writ large. |
| Posted by: mjh 2006-05-05 08:14 |
| #5 This needs to be one of a series of comic DVDs we produce and give broad free distribution throughout the middle east. Make the world laugh at these guys. Start a Zarqawi's Heroes prison camp at Abu Ghraib where the prisoners want to wear women's clothers, etc. World domination is tough when you're a laughingstock. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-05-05 08:07 |
| #4 WHATTA BUFFOOON!!!!!!!!!!!!! KEYSTONE COPS REVIVED??? |
| Posted by: ARMYGUY 2006-05-05 07:58 |
| #3 A continuous loop of Zman's cluelessness on how to pull back the M249's cocking handle should be on Centcom's website and played on arab satellite TV. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-05-05 07:56 |
| #2 He really does SUCK as a machinegunner. |
| Posted by: Boesoeker 2006-05-05 07:51 |
| #1 He really asked for it. |
| Posted by: Duh! 2006-05-05 03:28 |