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| Iraq |
| Ayman's video encourages Zarqawi |
| 2006-04-14 |
| Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant has released an Internet video calling on Iraqi insurgents to remain strong in the fight against Americans and praising the leadership of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who directs Al Qaeda's operations in Iraq. An introductory title on the video indicates that the lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, recorded the message last November, months after he is believed to have written a 6,000-word letter asking Mr. Zarqawi to refrain from slaughtering Shiites. In recent months, perhaps in response to the letter, Mr. Zarqawi has not personally taken responsibility for any major attacks in Iraq. "The Nation of Islam, I ask you to support your brothers, the mujahedeen in Iraq, and our brother, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, about whom I didn't see anything but good things the whole period I knew him," Mr. Zawahiri said in the video, as translated by the SITE Institute, an organization that tracks terrorists' messages. "I know him to be true, and how he is defending Islam with all his powers." In the video, Mr. Zawahiri wears a white turban and gray robes and has a thick beard, while an automatic rifle leans against a brown backdrop. A former physician from Egypt, he is believed to be hiding in the mountainous area that straddles Afghanistan and Pakistan. "You, my brothers in Iraq, stay firm, stay firm, be ready, be ready," he added. "Your enemy is now dizzy, and do not stop fighting until he is defeated by the grace of God." That message came as violence continued to roil Iraq. Gunmen killed Mahmoud Ahmed al-Hashemi, the brother of a leading Sunni Arab politician, Tariq al-Hashemi. A car bomb exploded at a market on the outskirts of Baghdad on Thursday evening, killing at least 15 and wounding 22, an Interior Ministry official said. In Hawija, in the north, insurgents killed two local contractors who delivered food to Iraqi Army units. Three men in Basra were abducted in two separate incidents; in one case, the kidnappers wore commando uniforms, officials said. An American soldier was killed Thursday by a roadside bomb southwest of Baghdad, and a marine died from "enemy action" west of Baghdad on Wednesday, the military said. The American military said Thursday that last month Iraqi troops killed Rafid Ibrahim Fattah, also known as Abu Umar al-Kurdi, identifying him as a terrorist with ties to Mr. bin Laden and other senior Qaeda figures, in a raid near Abu Ghraib, The Associated Press reported. The Iraqi government said a year ago that it had arrested a man with the same pseudonym and a similar background, but that report gave a different name for him, and it was unclear whether the reports referred to the same person. The title sequence of Mr. Zawahiri's video indicates that the taping was done to honor the fourth anniversary of the American bombing of Tora Bora, the rugged area of Afghanistan scoured by American forces in December 2001 during a search for Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahiri. Mr. Zawahiri opened the video by offering his condolences to the victims of the enormous earthquake in Kashmir last fall, which killed tens of thousands. It is unclear why Mr. Zawahiri or Al Qaeda waited so long to release the video. Mr. Zawahiri appeared in three other videos that surfaced over the winter, after the November one was made. In the last one, dated March 4, he praised the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections. This video appears at a time of conflicting reports about whether Mr. Zarqawi and his band of foreign fighters are closing their rift with some Iraqi insurgents who reportedly see them as interlopers. Some American officials here and sheiks from Anbar Province, the heartland of the Sunni Arab insurgency, say the divisions, which emerged over the winter, seem to be fading. Other officials say the split persists. Mr. Zarqawi has adopted a lower profile in recent months. He has renamed his group the Mujahedeen Shura, or Council of Holy Warriors; it was called Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and before that, One God and Jihad. The new group supposedly includes leading Iraqi insurgents. Mr. Zarqawi also has not put out any Internet messages signed by himself and has not released any beheading videos, a staple of the war in 2004. In his voluminous earlier letter to Mr. Zarqawi, dated July 9, Mr. Zawahiri advised him to avoid beheadings and warned him that the mass killings of Shiites would amount to "action that the masses do not understand or approve." The letter was released by Bush administration officials in October. The Washington Post reported this week that the American military started a propaganda campaign years ago to portray Mr. Zarqawi as a towering villain in order to galvanize Iraqi opinion against him. Some military officials have said that campaign has enlarged Mr. Zarqawi's reputation, The Post reported. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a military spokesman who often attributes violence in Iraq to Mr. Zarqawi's group, released a statement in response saying Mr. Zarqawi was a substantial enemy, not a boogeyman concocted by the military. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |