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| Iraq |
| Zarqawiâs Intel Network Trumps U.S.â |
| 2005-11-16 |
| When it comes to the spook business, terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi runs circles around the U.S. and fledgling Iraqi intelligence services trying desperately to track him down. The "good guysâ continue to fail to get their hands on the brutal al-Qaida mastermind responsible for butchering hundreds of his fellow Muslims. Zarqawiâs organization has repeatedly targeted Iraqi civilians who tried to assist in U.S. attempts to capture him, thus frightening off other potential informants, U.S. officials told the Los Angeles Times. "There is a huge network of intelligence operatives over there who are watching our every move," a U.S. Justice Department counter-terrorism official familiar with the campaign to track down Zarqawi told the Times. "And they are watching every time we recruit an Iraqi to come back and inform to us about where he has been and what he has seen. And every time we have been able to do that, the person has ended up dead." Despite a number of successes in the campaign to nab Zarqawi - a number of his top lieutenants have been killed or captured in a spate of "near missesâ - the murderous 39-year-old Jordanian has eluded capture. A $25 million bounty remains on his head. In one near miss last February, the Times recalled that Zarqawi jumped out of the back of a truck at a U.S. checkpoint near Ramadi before U.S. troops were able to search the vehicle. Officials told the Times troops captured his driver and bodyguard and recovered a large sum of cash and a laptop computer believed to belong to Zarqawi. "Several times we have showed up at places where we know he was hours or days earlier. But the intelligence we get is never fresh enough," a senior U.S. intelligence official told the Times. His ability to elude capture, the newspaper said, has allowed Zarqawi to move in and out of Iraq with relative ease. Sources told the Times that intelligence reports have revealed that he has traveled to Jordan, Syria and Iran to bolster his ranks and raise money. U.S. officials from the four agencies involved in the hunt for Zarqawi told the newspaper their failure was not from a lack of trying. At least two top-secret, multi-agency commando teams have been assigned solely to track Zarqawi and mobilize quickly to pursue him into the most unstable areas of Iraq where he is believed to be hiding. There are also dozens of special forces commandos and military intelligence gatherers on the hunt for him. The Times reports that the CIA has deployed dozens of case officers and analysts, the FBI has flown in special agents and bomb experts, and forensic money-trackers from the Treasury Department are trying to monitor the flow of illicit funds into and out of Iraq as a way of cornering Zarqawi and his top aides. Eavesdropping satellites, unmanned drones and even U-2 spy planes are gathering intelligence on the insurgency, some of them specifically watching for Zarqawi. "It's not like John Gotti running around Manhattan in fancy suits and limousines," a Justice Department counter-terrorism official told the Times, referring to the late mob boss. "We are talking about a man who is operating in an area that is extremely primitive, in a very clandestine manner and with a huge network of people that do his communications for him and surround him and protect him." Some U.S. military commanders, however say a noose is gradually tightening around Zarqawi's neck in the wake of raids in the last year that have captured or killed a number of people identified as his top lieutenants. "We truly believe that Zarqawi's days are limited," Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, deputy chief of staff of the multinational force in Iraq, told the Times. He pointed to a hexagon-shaped chart that showed tiers of what he said were senior Zarqawi operatives who had been killed or captured. The chart showed: Seven "Tier 1" operatives, or those defined as having direct ties to Zarqawi, including Abu Azzam, described as the "emir of Iraq"; Abu Abdallah, a military leader in Ramadi; Abu Umer a-Kurdi, considered a master builder of homemade bombs in Baghdad; and leaders of Zarqawi's organization in Mosul and Haditha and western Al Anbar province. As many as 38 "Tier 2" operatives killed or captured and 71 in "Tier 3," many of them Iraqi and foreign fighters or leaders of cells. "Given [the] many, many sources of intelligence and information, we have great success at killing or capturing his leaders, his cell leaders, his coordinators and his lieutenants, and this chart just continues to expand, and eventually, he's going to be on this chart," Lynch said. Efforts to build an Iraqi intelligence arm capable of handling problems such as Zarqawi have proved difficult, in part, the Times reported because of Zarqawi's campaign of violence targeting those working against him. "There's no upside for helping the Americans," one U.S. counter-terrorism official told the Times. "Even if you were willing to make a personal sacrifice" to help the U.S. effort, "they'll go after your family. Actionable intelligence is a challenge in any country, but particularly so in Iraq." |
| Posted by:Captain America |
| #3 Sooner or later he'll slip up and that will be that. Building an intel network isn't something that happens on Internet time, so what's necessary is maintaining patience and staying the course. Zarqawi can't kill everyone. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-11-16 20:03 |
| #2 Damn, now that was Arctic JAB. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-11-16 19:17 |
| #1 But we've got Val Plame and Joe Wilson. |
| Posted by: JAB 2005-11-16 19:11 |