Complications in the 'war on
terror' By Charles Recknagel
United States officials say that they are
increasingly convinced that the man responsible for the
Ashura attacks in Baghdad and Karbala on Tuesday is
Jordanian extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
General John
Abizaid, the head of the US Central Command and the top
commander for Iraq, said in Washington that "we have
intelligence" linking al-Zarqawi to the attacks. The
death toll from
the
attacks remains unclear, with figures ranging from 117
to 271.
"We have intelligence that ties Zarqawi
to this attack. We also have intelligence that shows
that there is some linkage between Zarqawi and the
former regime elements, specifically the Iraqi
intelligence service, and we are concerned to see a
terrorist group come into close coordination with former
Iraqi intelligence-service people," Abizaid said.
Abizaid did not detail the evidence against
al-Zarqawi. But other senior US military figures in Iraq
have said that the bombings fit the pattern of 25
previous attacks that al-Zarqawi claims to have
organized or helped carry out since the US toppled
Saddam Hussein last April.
US military spokesman
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, speaking in Baghdad,
described the evidence against al-Zarqawi: "We certainly
have solid evidence linking him to previous attacks in
this country. The 25 attacks that he talks about, there
is certainly a body of evidence that points to Zarqawi
being the perpetrator of those crimes. As regards [March
3] in both Karbala and Baghdad, we are developing that
body of evidence right now."
Al-Zarqawi made his
claims of launching or helping to organize 25 previous
attacks in a letter intercepted by US forces in January.
The letter, which Washington believes was written by
al-Zarqawi, was addressed to al-Qaeda leaders in
Afghanistan and asked for their support in organizing
further operations. US officials say that the letter
spoke of directing attacks against Iraq's Shi'ite
community in an effort to provoke a sectarian conflict
in the country that might help drive out the US-led
coalition.
Kimmitt has previously said the
Ashura attacks - which included the use of suicide
bombers, hidden bombs and mortars - followed
al-Zarqawi's pattern of favoring "spectacular" and
"symbolic" actions that feature suicide bombers
sacrificing themselves to attack the enemy.
Speaking to the press just hours after the
bombings, Kimmitt said: "One of the chief suspects in
this would be Zarqawi just [judging] by the methods that
have been used in the past, just by the techniques that
have been used in the past - by the axiom of suicidal,
spectacular, symbolic [attacks] - all those would point
to some sort of transnational organization, probably had
some local assistance, but very, very indicative of the
modus that we have seen in some of the other suicide
attacks, as well."
US officials caution,
however, that al-Zarqawi is far from being the only
organizer of attacks aimed at coalition forces or Iraqi
civilians. Suspected loyalists of the deposed Saddam
regime are believed to have been behind numerous attacks
on coalition targets across the country. In the north of
Iraq, Kurdish Islamist extremists are suspected of twin
suicide bombings against the coalition-allied Kurdish
administration that killed more than 100 people in
February.
Still, al-Zarqawi is considered
particularly dangerous because he has emerged as the
best-known figure promoting jihadi actions in the region
- that is, operations by militant Islamist groups
engaged in a holy struggle against the West.
Counterterrorism experts describe the 37-year-old
Jordanian as a "thinker" and a "good organizer" who
partly trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan but who
has developed his own network of operatives.
In
one measure of the importance Washington attaches to
al-Zarqawi, the US announced in February that it had
doubled - from US$5 million to $10 million - the reward
it will pay for information leading to his death or
capture.
Magnus Ranstorp is an expert on
terrorist groups at the Center on Terrorism and
Political Violence at St Andrews University in Scotland.
He says that al-Zarqawi "straddles multiple camps" in
the militant Muslim world. He says many of those camps
could be considered to be under the general umbrella of
al-Qaeda's ideology, even though they are separate from
the group itself. "The important thing is, he has been
in many different stations and that enables him to have
this loose control or guiding force in terms of
operations," Ranstorp said.
As a member of a
Jordanian group opposed to that country's
Western-leaning monarchy, al-Zarqawi has long been
involved in struggles against the US presence throughout
the region. He is suspected of orchestrating the
assassination of US diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman in
2002 and was sentenced to death in absentia by a
Jordanian court last year for plotting attacks against
US and Israeli targets.
The emergence of
al-Zarqawi as the most prominent Islamic extremist
leader in Iraq comes as US intelligence officials are
reported to be rethinking their tactics in the "war on
terrorism". Previously, they had sought to root out
al-Qaeda as a well-established and cohesive network.
Those efforts began with the US-led military campaign
that toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001.
But, as Central Intelligence Agency director
George Tenet told a US Senate panel late last month, the
uprooting of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan has "transformed
the organization into a loose collection of regional
networks" that "pick their own targets ...[and] plan
their own attacks".
That has raised the
possibility of extremists like al-Zarqawi emerging as
independent jihadi leaders who look to al-Qaeda for
inspiration and sometimes material support. These new
leaders appear quite capable of continuing their fight
against the US regardless of al-Qaeda's ultimate fate -
making the war on terrorism increasingly a multifront
conflict with no end in sight.
Charles
Recknagel is a senior correspondent for Gulf Affairs
and related issues in Prague. He has reported from Iraq,
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey, among other countries,
and written extensively on Iran.
Copyright (c) 2004, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted
with the permission of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut
Ave NW, Washington DC 20036
the
attacks remains unclear, with figures ranging from 117
to 271. 
