Al-Zarqawi hunt continues
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wozark1221,0,2200895.st
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BY MOHAMAD BAZZI
STAFF WRITER
December 21, 2004
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq -- Where is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi?
That question has confounded the U.S. military for more than a year.
U.S. and Iraqi officials insisted for months that the most wanted man in
Iraq was hiding in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah. But after
recapturing the city last month, U.S. forces did not find al-Zarqawi
there.
The Jordanian-born militant has achieved mythic status as a master of
disguise and escape. Although al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for
scores of kidnappings, suicide bombings and beheadings of foreigners,
many Iraqis believe that al-Zarqawi does not even exist. They say he was
invented by the United States to justify its raids and bombing
campaigns.
Al-Zarqawi's influence on the Iraqi insurgency is more complicated than
both the U.S. military and al-Zarqawi make it out to be, according to
Kurdish security officials. They say al-Zarqawi is likely moving around
central and northern Iraq alone, finding shelter in Sunni Muslim areas
dominated by former members of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime.
"He can move around any number of Iraqi areas. He can change his
appearance, he can change his papers," said Dana Ahmad Majid, head of
security for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two parties that
control the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. "He could be
moving around alone without any problem. Al-Zarqawi is a single man, and
it's always extremely difficult to capture a single person."
Asked if he thought al-Zarqawi escaped during last month's U.S. assault
on Fallujah, Majid smiled, took a drag on his cigarette and said, "Who
knows that al-Zarqawi was ever in Fallujah?"
In interviews over the past week, Majid and other security officials
painted a picture of how the insurgency is operating in northern Iraq,
especially in the city of Mosul and surrounding areas that have long
been Baathist strongholds. The assessments of these officials -- based
on interrogation of dozens of insurgents captured over the past year --
contradict some of the U.S. military's repeated assertions about
al-Zarqawi's role in the insurgency.
Kurdish officials acknowledged that the most vexing challenge in
combatting the insurgency is that guerrillas have infiltrated nearly all
branches of the Iraqi government. "The terrorists' point of strength is
information," said Sadi Ahmed Pire, who is in charge of the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan's security operations in Mosul. "They have exact
information. They have people in every government office and department:
police, national guard, the health and education ministries, the
municipalities. Some cooperate willingly, while others are forced."
Pire said he has intelligence that al-Zarqawi has spent time in Mosul,
Iraq's third-largest city, and has also found refuge in a desert area
called Qaim, near Iraq's border with Jordan and Syria.
Why doesn't Pire share such information on al-Zarqawi's whereabouts with
the U.S. military, so it can carry out raids? "If we or the Americans
get ready to launch an operation, the terrorists will know about it
within an hour," Pire said.
One spectacular example of penetration occurred just last month. During
a series of coordinated attacks by insurgents aimed at taking over the
Iraqi government infrastructure in Mosul, most Iraqi police units in the
city assisted the guerrillas. "Many police commanders and the director
of police in Mosul were cooperating with the terrorists," Pire said. "In
one day, Nov. 9, they gave them control of two-thirds of the police
stations in the city."
Among the other intelligence gleaned by Kurdish officials from their
interrogations of prisoners, including several who have met with
al-Zarqawi:
Islamic militant groups operate in small cells of three or four people,
each headed by an "emir," or prince, who is empowered to make decisions
about when and where to launch attacks and suicide bombings. "The
general planning might be done by al-Zarqawi, and perhaps he might also
secure some material or money," Majid said. "But the specific acts are
being carried out by small cells, and al-Zarqawi might not even know
about them until he hears it on the news."
It is a mistake to paint al-Zarqawi as the ultimate leader of the Iraqi
insurgency because there are so many small groups of militants that
might agree with al-Zarqawi ideologically but that may not necessarily
take orders from him. "There are localized leaders who can make
day-to-day decisions about what attacks to carry out," Majid said. "But
who is the supreme leader? We don't know."
Al-Zarqawi is working closely with a Kurdish Islamist group, Ansar
al-Islam ("Partisans of Islam"), which once had about 700 members and
has provided scores of recruits for suicide bombings since the U.S.
invasion of Iraq. Ansar moved many of its operations to Mosul after it
was driven out of a remote, mountainous part of northern Iraq by U.S.
bombardment during the war. The group also has a presence in Baghdad,
Fallujah, Ramadi and Baqubah -- cities where the insurgency has been
entrenched.
Most of Ansar's leaders have been killed or captured. But the group has
become more difficult to track because it has splintered into small
cells and some of its members have been absorbed into another group led
by al-Zarqawi: Tawhid wa Jihad ("Unity and Holy War").
Most of the communication between various militant groups, including
al-Zarqawi and his supporters, is done through Internet cafes.
"Telephone communications in Iraq are difficult," Majid said, "but the
Internet is everywhere and it is difficult to track."
Insurgents are using proceeds from drug trafficking, especially hashish
smuggled from Afghanistan, to finance some of their attacks. Some
suicide bombers also are being given sedatives and other drugs before
carrying out their attacks. As an example, Majid cited a 20-year-old
Kurd who was killed in September as he tried to ram a car packed with
explosives into a hotel in the city of Sulaimaniyah. "When we examined
his body, we found a small amount of drugs in his system," Majid said.
Baathist and Islamic groups have liaison officers in major cities such
as Mosul to coordinate activities. And both factions are paying
unemployed young men to carry out attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces.
"They pay from $50 to thousands of dollars, depending on the tasks,"
Pire said. "There's 75 percent unemployment in Mosul. Maybe some of
these young people are not terrorists, but they have to make some
money."
One of the major questions facing the U.S. military is the extent of
foreign involvement in the insurgency. Kurdish officials say the
majority of insurgents they have arrested were Iraqi, but there were
also some Syrians, Jordanians and Palestinians. In January, Majid's
forces captured Hassan Ghul, a Pakistani believed to be a mid-level
operative in al-Qaida. Ghul was carrying a CD with a 17-page letter
purportedly written by al-Zarqawi to Osama bin Laden. The letter appeals
to bin Laden for help in setting off a sectarian war through a campaign
of bombings against the Shia Muslim majority in Iraq.
Before invading Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration argued that
al-Zarqawi was a top lieutenant of bin Laden. U.S. officials said
al-Zarqawi had taken refuge in Baghdad and was a major link between
Hussein's regime and bin Laden's al-Qaida network. But that assertion
has never been proven, and there are doubts about al-Zarqawi's
relationships with both bin Laden and Hussein's government, as some Bush
administration officials have acknowledged in recent months. In July,
U.S. officials raised the reward for information leading to al-Zarqawi's
arrest or killing to $25 million -- equal to the bounty on bin Laden's
head.
The Bush administration has consistently labeled al-Zarqawi as the main
force behind the Iraqi insurgency. To some Iraqis, the U.S. focus on
al-Zarqawi is part of a political strategy to portray the insurgency as
driven by Islamic militants and foreigners.
Kurdish officials say the insurgency found renewed strength in northern
Iraq in May, after the Baath Party held a meeting in the Syrian town of
Hasaka.
The party reorganized itself, expelling more than half the membership,
or anyone who had dealings with the United States, the Iraqi government
or even humanitarian aid groups. The new Baath leaders are Mohammad
Younis al-Ahmad and Ibrahim Sabawi, Hussein's half-brother and the
former head of Iraq's general security directorate.
The new leadership found support in Mosul, which had been an important
base for Hussein's military and security apparatus, providing more than
a third of all Iraqi officers. "The insurgents are using the
infrastructure of the old Iraqi army," Pire said. "In Mosul alone, there
were more generals than in all of America."
Majid noted that the focus on al-Zarqawi takes some of the pressure off
lesser-known Baathist leaders. "These people like to remain anonymous,"
Majid said. "If everyone is looking for al-Zarqawi, they have more room
to operate."
Copyright (c) 2004, Newsday, Inc.
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