Category: Middle East

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, terrorist leader and sub-human extraordinaire, is trying to convince followers of Islam that, hey, it’s cool with their god if he kills innocents among them.

An Internet audiotape posted Wednesday, purportedly by al-Qaida-in-Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, justifies the deaths of fellow Muslims in attacks against U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies by saying that jihad – or holy war – dwarfs all other concerns.

“God ordered us to attack the infidels by all means … even if armed infidels and unintended victims – women and children – are killed together,” the speaker said. “The priority is for jihad so anything that slows down jihad should be overcome.”

Realize that bombers in marketplaces are not targeting infidels — they are specifically aiming at the murder of innocent Muslims.

The defense of the deadly attacks could be aimed at bolstering the ranks of the insurgency with Sunni Arabs who may have initially shied away over concerns about innocent civilians being killed. The speaker claimed that top religious scholars have repeatedly sanctioned suicide bombings.

The tape was the first said to be from the Jordanian-born militant since a new, Shiite-dominated government was put in place in early May. In the past weeks, al-Qaida in Iraq and other militant groups have stepped up their campaign of car bombings, suicide attacks, shootings and kidnappings [apparently ordered by Zarqawi].

[…]

At the Pentagon, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said al-Zarqawi’s justifications for killing fellow Muslims showed he “has absolutely no moral foundation. It’s an outrage.”

“What he says is it’s OK for Muslims to kill Muslims, and not just any Muslims but innocents, men, women and children,” Myers told a news conference. “And that’s what he’s been doing. If you look at the statistics over the last couple of weeks, a lot of Iraqi men, women and children have died because this violent extremist is trying to convince others to do it.”

In the tape, the speaker denounced Shiites, accusing Shiite militias operated by parties that are now part of the government of assassinating Sunni Muslim figures, kidnapping Sunni women and seizing mosques since the U.S.-led invasion two years ago.

“These hateful brigades … deported Sunni families from the south, killed hundreds of the Sunnis, took over the mosques, and turned them to bastions of apostasy,” he said.

Shiites are “collaborating with the worshippers of the cross,” who invaded Iraq, corrupted the country and violated holy sites, the speaker said. “This is all taking place under of a state of apostasy among the rulers of this nation.”

[…]

“He said he’s trying to provoke a civil war. He’s trying to keep freedom from happening in the Middle East,” Myers told reporters.

Of course the terrorists are hoping to incite a civil war, as I’ve stated many times. The movement of these radical Islamist bastards is one that feeds on suffering, both as a weapon and as a recruiting tool. A successful democracy in Iraq would be a virus that would suck the life out of the likes of Zarqawi.

Chad has more over at In the Bullpen.

Warning: take this with a freakin’ major grain of salt.

Iraq and Iran pledged Tuesday to turn the page on nearly a quarter-century of war and bitter rivalry during a visit here by Iran’s foreign minister, who expressed support for Iraq’s new Shiite-led government.

“I have no doubt this visit will open up significant new horizons for cooperation between the two countries,” the Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, told a joint news conference after talks with his Iranian counterpart, Kamal Kharazi.

“Post-Saddam Iraq is a new Iraq, at peace with its neighbors, far removed from its bellicose predecessor,” Zebari said.

Iraq may be at peace with its neighbors, but its neighbors, most notably Iran and Syria, are certainly not at peace with Iraq.

He also said Iran had pledged to cooperate on security and not provide any support to the insurgency.

Kharazi said: “We will not allow terrorists to use our lands to access Iraq. We will watch our borders and will arrest infiltrators, because securing Iraq is securing the Islamic Republic.”

I don’t believe Kharazi’s first sentence but do believe the second. It all depends on what one thinks Iran means by “securing” Iraq.

Iraq, struggling to contain insurgent attacks that have killed more than 400 people since a new government was unveiled three weeks ago, has accused neighboring countries of not doing enough to secure their borders.

Kharazi, the highest-ranking Iranian official to visit Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein two years ago, assured his counterpart that Iran would not interfere in its neighbor’s affairs.

“Iraqis are in charge of their own affairs,” he said. “Any interference would be an insult to the Iraqi people.”

“It is in Iran’s interest to support by all possible means the Iraqi government,” he added. “It is not in the interest of any of Iraq’s neighbors to see the current situation continue because it would have negative consequences on the entire region.”

Again, I don’t believe the first sentence of the last paragraph but have no problem accepting the truth in the Iranian’s following sentence, if one defines “current situation” as a growing, popular democracy. That is certainly something that would have negative consequences for the current radical rulers of Iran.

Baghdad and Tehran re-established diplomatic ties in September, although many issues, including a peace treaty, remain unresolved following the devastating 1980-1988 war that left about one million dead.

Relations between Iran, with a Shiite majority, and the interim Iraq government set up by the United States in June 2004 were awkward.

But the formation this month of a Shiite-dominated government has helped ease relations. Many of the new Iraqi ministers spent years in exile in Iran, an archfoe of Washington, and Zebari made a point of repeatedly speaking in Farsi during the news conference.

The need to counter-balance Iranian influence is a key part in why the inclusion of the Sunnis into the new government is needed. That is meant to buy short-term viability while working towards long-term stability.

Kharazi’s visit comes against a backdrop of increasing tension between majority Shiites and previously dominant Sunni Arabs in Iraq, where a recent series of tit-for-tat killings have raised the specter of a sectarian war.

Iran would love an Iraqi civil war, as the Shiites would crush the minority Sunnis and Iran-friendly radical clerics would potentially grow in popularity and influence. Syria would settle for a civil war, if only to prevent a free and economically successful Arab democracy as a neighbor.

Perhaps the action is a reaction spurred by the recent rash of bombings. Perhaps it is a movement of opportunity based on only-recently acquired data. Probably it’s both — some new information that allowed a movement against a porous border region at a time when the insurgents are greatly in need of another beating. Either way, the coalition forces are back on the offensive, this time pressing the issue and bloodying the enemy near the Syrian border.

American forces have killed at least 100 insurgents and foreign fighters in an offensive near Iraq’s border with Syria, U.S. military officials said Monday.

The offensive, which began Saturday, involves more than 1,000 U.S. troops in an attempt to crack down on the network headed by terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the military said.

Three Marines from the 2nd Marine Division have died in the fighting, two on Sunday and one Monday, the military said.

Officials said much of the fighting has been in the Al Jazirah Desert north of Qaim, a city along the Euphrates River in Anbar province on the Syrian border.

The area has “basically [been] a sanctuary” for insurgents, said Col. Bob Chase, a Marine operations officer based at Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi.

A military press release said the region was known as a smuggling route. Insurgents have been using “known points of entry and ‘rat lines,’ as we call them, to bring in weapons illegally,” Chase said.

Based on their “equipment and dress,” Chase said most of the insurgents are believed to be foreign fighters, not Iraqis.

The offensive involves forces from the U.S. Army, Navy and Marines, the military said. Aircraft include Marine Corps jets, Chase said.

Casualties have been “extremely light on the coalition side,” Chase said, “and conversely there have been a lot of enemy casualties.”

Many of the fighters “are starting to flee, and we are continuing to press the attack.”

Chase said the operation began after Iraqis provided information on the whereabouts of the insurgents.

“The people are starting to be frustrated with these insurgents and with these foreign fighters,” he told CNN.

“The offensive started based on some significant intelligence received from some very brave folks who live in that part of the country.”

Meanwhile, Zarqawi’s group calls the report of devastating casualties lies.

The Al-Qaeda group of Iraq’s most-wanted militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi denied a US report on Monday that 75 insurgents had been killed in a sweep near the Syrian border.

‘The adorers of the cross claim to have killed 75 Muslims at Al-Qaim. Once more, they are lying, because lying is their religion,’ said the statement on an Islamist website, the authenticity of which could not be verified.

Of course they’re lies, Mr. Terrorist. Oh, and by the way, how’s that inpenetrable defense of Fallujah treating y’all these days?

Attacks in Iraq have been on the uptick of late, over-shadowing the formation of the country’s first government derived by the will of the people. Bombins and attacks have dramatically increased, but does this portend a new phase in the theater or an unsustainable play for attention? The U.S. believes it’s the latter.

Insurgents in Iraq are drawing on dozens of stockpiled, bomb-rigged cars and groups of foreign fighters smuggled into the country in recent weeks to carry out most of the suicide attacks that have killed about 300 people in past 10 days, senior American officers and intelligence officials say.

The insurgents exploded 135 car bombs in April, up from 69 in March, and more than in any other month in the two-year American occupation. For the first time last month, more than 50 percent of the car-bombings were suicide attacks, some remotely detonated, suggesting that Iraqis, who typically do not use that tactic, are being forced or duped into driving those missions, one top American general said.

That’s an interesting note about the increase in suicide car-bombings. Team that note with this story of a blackmailed would-be bomber and one has to take special note of the tactical change. Simply put, it reeks of desperate motives.

Why the desperation? The Iraqi populace and time are not on the side of the terrorists. Momentum for the forward-moving nation has to be stopped before progress can be reversed. The bad guys have failed to bring about a sufficiently bloody moment to force the U.S. to cut and run, as had been the plans of all opposing the U.S. since Mogadishu in 1993. A sustained effort did not stop January’s momentous elections. Tactics had to change and risks had to be taken.

Senior American officers predict that the insurgents, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant whose network has claimed responsibility for the deadliest suicide bombings, will not be able to sustain the level of attacks much longer. And the attacks have not yet dented recruiting for the American-trained Iraqi security forces.

But these officers acknowledged that the heightened suicide bombings over the last two weeks, while probably a last-ditch effort, have won the militants important propaganda victories by gaining worldwide news coverage, increasing insurgent morale that flagged after the Jan. 30 elections, and depicting the new Iraqi government as incapable of protecting its citizenry.

“When he cranks up the propaganda campaign, it means we’ve probably hurt him,” Brigadier General John DeFreitas 3rd, the senior military intelligence officer in Iraq, said of Zarqawi. “It’s a tool in his arsenal and he has used it effectively.”

Yes, propaganda is a tool that Zarqawi and his terrrorist cohorts are rather adept at utilizing. Why is that tool so valuable and how does it fit in with their desperation? Several, including myself and others, have written that they are trying to manipulate a seemingly-willing media to create another Tet, another defeat generated from victory. And that, dear readers, is something that haunts the American military.

In interviews with a dozen senior military officers in Iraq or with experience there, as well as with other American officials, varying assessments emerged, underscoring the military’s opaque understanding of exactly how the disparate strands of the insurgency operate and coordinate with each other.

One senior officer said the recent violence was a predictable “attempt by the enemy to show that they are still a factor, still relevant and still capable.”

The bombings, this officer said, “grabbed the headlines, drowned out the good news of a newly formed government, attacked the credibility and legitimacy of the new government.”

Another top officer with extensive experience in Iraq said it would not matter if the suicide car-bombings subsided if the insurgents “feel that they achieved their information-operation objectives.”

A third officer, a general with extensive command experience in Iraq, said that he was not sure yet what the rash of suicide car-bombings meant: “More foreign fighters? More religious extremists? An indicator of insurgent desperation? Iraqis as suicide attackers?”

My answer is C, an indicator of insurgent desperation.

Attacks against allied forces had dropped to about 40 a day in March and early April, and now they stand at 55 a day, well below the 130 a day in the days before the Jan. 30 elections, but roughly the same as last fall.

Attacks against power stations, pipelines and other infrastructure have declined sharply in the past three weeks as insurgents shifted their attacks to Iraqi security forces, U.S. officers said.

An assault last month against the Abu Ghraib prison, which wounded 44 Americans and 13 Iraqi prisoners, as well as smaller strikes almost daily since then against the prison that became the center of the prisoner-abuse scandal, have been ineffective militarily but successful as a means of propaganda, DeFreitas said.

“Abu Ghraib is a huge symbol for the insurgents,” he said.

Attacks against U.S. forces are indeed off sharply. April 2005 came in as ninth of the previous twelve in terms of American casualties and eleventh of twelve for American deaths (source). No, this uptick in attacks is against two targets — the Iraqi people and symbols such as Abu Ghraib — and have only one goal in mind — headlines.

Top commanders said they expected spikes and lulls in the violence through at least early next year.

“It takes everything they’ve got to muster attacks,” Major General Stephen Johnson, the Marine commander in Iraq, said. “Unless the insurgents get involved in the political process, I think we’ll continue to see this.”

Yes, it’s far from over and we will continue to see times such as this. Especially when CNN.com is willing to give top billing to the death of three Americans over the capture of the mastermind who was behind most of the attacks discussed in this article, just because those three drove total U.S. casualty figures to the easily-reported round number of 1,600.

Good news from Iraq, as another key member of the Iraqi insurgency has been caught.

U.S. forces have arrested the alleged mastermind of last month’s assault on Abu Ghraib prison and the organizer of recent lethal car bombings in Baghdad, the Iraqi government and U.S. military said Sunday.

Amar Adnan Muhammad Hamzah Zubaydi, detained Thursday in an early morning raid on his home, was described as an associate of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi, according to separate statements issued by the Iraqi government and U.S. military officials.

[…]

Zubaydi allegedly planned the coordinated April 2 assault on Abu Ghraib prison that wounded 44 American troops and 13 detainees.

He also was allegedly responsible for a series of car bombings in Baghdad April 29, the day after Iraq’s new government was formally approved by the National Assembly. The bombings were part of a wave of insurgent violence across the country that day that killed at least 50 people, including three American soldiers.

According a former officer in Saddam Hussein’s army and a journalist with sources in the insurgency, Zubaydi is related to Muhammad Hamza Zubaydi, a top Hussein officials who was on the Pentagon’s most wanted list until his arrest in April 2003.

The former officer described the Hussein aide as Zubaydi’s uncle. He said the younger Zubaydi was a Baath Party official in charge of security in central Iraq and had helped put down an uprising by Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq in 1991. After the U.S. invasion, Zubaydi went to Syria, the officer said. When he returned to take part in the insurgency, he posed as a religiously motivated fighter, he added.

[…]

The U.S. military statement also accused Zubaydi of planning the assassination of “a prominent Iraqi government official.” It added that he admitted providing explosives to the man responsible for more than 75 percent of all car bombings in Baghdad before his capture in mid-January.

I find it interesting to note, while willing to run the fruits of this man’s terrorist labors as its top stories, CNN chooses to relegate his capture to second billing. Instead, CNN chose to focus its watchful eye on the American casualty count in Iraq, which has reached 1,600. CNN — no sense of perspective but always there to rain on any American military parade.