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The announcement by Abu-Mu'ab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad Group in Iraq, that pledged allegiance to the Al-Qaida Organization of Osama Bin-Ladin has generated a variety of interpretations.

"Linking Al-Zarqawi to Al-Qa'idah adds some legitimacy to Bush's claims about Saddam's cooperation with Al-Qa'idah and subsequently adds legitimacy to his occupation of Iraq." Husayn Bin-Mahmud

Louis Meixler of the Associated Press published an analysis on Tuesday suggesting that the pledge may be a sign of weakness rather than strength. The article quotes Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institute, who argues that the pledge may show that Al-Zarqawi, while politically strong among Islamic militants, may be desperately in need of money and people after the pounding he is taking from the U.S. military.

In the statement appearing on an Islamic Web site last weekend, al-Zarqawi said he regarded bin Laden as "the best leader for Islam's armies against all infidels and apostates" and pledged "allegiance of Tawhid and Jihad's leadership and soldiers to the chief of all fighters, Osama bin Laden."

Predictably, during this election season, the AP concluded with someone skeptical of the timing of the announcement:

"If al-Zarqawi were the manager of the Bush campaign, this would be the right statement at the right time," said Diaa Rashwan, a terrorism analyst at Cairo's al-Ahram Center. "It's timing ... only serves the interests of the Bush election campaign."

The BBC Monitoring International Reports published several reactions to Al-Zarqawi's announcements that were originally published in the London-based newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi on October 19 as "Al-Zarqawi's pledge of allegiance to Bin Ladin draws extremely contrasting interpretations." Here are three selections from the sources quoted in that report:

• Yasir al-Sirri, director of the London-based Islamic Observation Centre, says that the pledge of allegiance shows that "the US allegations about a relationship between Al-Qa'idah and Saddam Husayn through Al-Zarqawi are incorrect."
• Abd-al-Bari Atwan, chief editor of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi, says: "This pledge of allegiance eliminates with certainty any doubt about Al-Zarqawi's connection to Bin-Ladin. Al-Zarqawi has come under the wing of Al-Qa'idah. Al-Zarqawi is a graduate of Bin-Ladin's school. He received training in Afghanistan and went to Iraq where he established a branch for the organization. Today, the branch rejoins the mother organization. The Al-Qa'idah Organization is a horizontal and not vertical organization and Bin-Ladin is the spiritual father."
• Husayn Bin-Mahmud, an expert in the Islamic World Information Centre, wrote an analysis recently published on Islamic Internet sites. He says: "Al-Zarqawi is a mysterious personality. He is the ideal person for attracting the attention of the American public. He also justifies the viewpoint that Bush gives to his people that this war was not launched only against Iraq, but also against international terrorism." Mahmud says that Al-Zarqawi is also Bush's "justification for staying in Iraq." He says: "Linking Al-Zarqawi to Al-Qa'idah adds some legitimacy to Bush's claims about Saddam's cooperation with Al-Qa'idah and subsequently adds legitimacy to his occupation of Iraq."

UPDATE: The Associated Press reports that Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad has changed its name to "al-Qaida of Jihad in the Land of Two Rivers" [the Euphrates and the Tigris].

Labels: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda, Al-Qa'idah, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad Group, Iraq, Osama bin Laden

BBC Monitoring has translated a report of the interrogation of Umar Bizani, a recently captured member of Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad. The source of the report, published in Arabic on October 5, is the website of the Lebanese newspaper Al-Mustaqbal of Beirut.

Here are the highlights:

• Umar Bizani, the "emir of Baghdad" in Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad group, was captured in the past few weeks and made important confessions.
• Iran supports the activities of the Jordanian extremist al-Zarqawi in Iraq
• Al-Zarqawi has been a frequent visitor to Iran for years.
• During the offensive that the US forces launched on Al-Fallujah in April, Al-Zarqawi moved to Iran.
• Bizani was one of 10 key leaders (emirs) helping Al-Zarqawi to run the Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad group, whose members total over 2500.
• Al-Zarqawi's escorts who secure his travels number between 15 and 25, but do not include any Iraqi nationals. Iraqi nationals do, however, constitute the "backbone" of the group itself.
• Al-Zarqawi's group does not belong to Al-Qa'idah, but there exist links between the two groups and occasional cooperation between them in Iraq.
• Bizani claimed that Al-Zarqawi had been in Afghanistan and Kabul and had met often with Usamah Bin-Ladin, but had never been a member of Al-Qa'idah. Al-Zarqawi does, however, believes in the ideology of Al-Qa'idah and has admiration for Bin-Ladin.
• Al-Zarqawi now believes that Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad can replace Al-Qa'idah since it has weakened and no longer has a clear existence in the jihad area.
• The closest group to Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad is the Ansar Al-Islam group, though there have been rifts, resulting in some members of Ansar Al-Islam moving to Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad.
• Most members of the Al-Zarqawi group are Islamists, despite some efforts to coopt Saddam's Ba'thist loyalists into the group.
• Ansar Al-Islam has served as a connecting link between Al-Zarqawi and some Iranian parties.
• Al-Zarqawi visited Iran in September 2001 to meet with members of Ansar Al-Islam members who were active in Europe.
• Al-Zarqawi has established ties with Iranian agencies, particularly with Qasim Soleymani, the commander of the al-Quds Corps in the Revolution Guards that are operating in Iraq.
• While in Iran last April, Al-Zarqawi spent several weeks in a Revolution Guards camp in the Mahran area on the border with Iraq. He then returned to Ba'qubah in Iraq with the assistance of Al-Quds Corps.
• With the assistance of the Iraqi organization Ansar Al-Sunna and the Islamic Army in Iraq, Al-Zarqawi succeeded in establishing links with some of the leadership of Al-Mahdi Army, led by Iraqi Shi'i cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, during the fighting in Al-Najaf in May and July.

Labels: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Afghanistan, al Qaeda, Al-Mahdi Army, Al-Qa'idah, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, al-Quds Corps, Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad Group, Ansar Al-Islam, Iran, Iraq, Qasim Soleymani

BBC Monitoring, translating a report from Al-Sharq al-Awsat, a London-based Arabic newspaper, claims that sources close to the Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad group of Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi say that the death of Umar Yusuf Jum'ah was a "strong blow" to Al-Zarqawi's group. Yusuf Jum'ah, also known as Abu-Anas al-Shami, was killed in Baghdad on September 17 by an American rocket.

According to the report:

• Abu-Anas al-Shami was born in Amman in 1969.


• His family were Palestinians from the area of Tulkarm, on the West Bank.


• He graduated in 1990 from the Islamic University in Mecca with a specialization in the teaching of Islamic law (Shari'ah).


• According to the head of the Koran and Sunnah Society, Al-Shami resigned from the Society in 2002, just one month after the fall of Saddam Hussein.


• A few months later, al-Shami moved to Iraq.


• Al-Zarqawi was urgently in need of a person, like Al-Shami, broadly versed in Shari'ah.


• Al-Shami took over the position of Shari'ah mufti of the Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad group, second only to Al-Zarqawi (Ahmad al-Khalayiyah).


• Al-Shami was not one of the nine field commanders, responsible for separate combat areas.


• The sources revealed that Jordanian security agencies did not know of Abu-Anas al-Shami and he was not wanted by the Jordanians.


• Umar Yusuf Jum'ah's name surfaced during the trial of Bilal Mansur Mahmud al-Hiyari.


• The Jordanian State Security Court began the trial of Al-Hiyari at the beginning of September 2004, accusing him of conspiring to carry out terrorist activities and of collecting contributions for Al-Qa'idah.


• The charge sheet said that Umar Yusuf Jum'ah had proposed to Al-Hiyari that he travel to Iraq in March 2003 to join in the fighting against the US forces.


• Jordanian security agencies had no other security records on Al-Shami.


• The lack of a full record on Al-Shami was troubling inasmuch as he had had a close relationship with Isam al-Barqawi, who is also known as Abu-Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the leader of the Bay'at al-Imam group.


• Al-Maqdisi is presently in the custody of the Jordanian State Security Court.


• The relative anonymity of al-Shami is taken to show that most of the members of "Al-Zarqawi's Army" have not been uncovered by U.S. security agencies and are operating deeply underground.


• According to former Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yasin Ramadan the Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad group has a membership of more than 5000 Arab volunteers in Iraq.

Source: Al-Sharq al-Awsat, London, in Arabic 24 Sep 04
BBC Monitoring

Labels: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Abu-Anas Al-Shami, Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad Group, Iraq

The BBC Worldwide Monitoring reports that an Arabic website, www.al-watan.com, contained a report on September 22 from Paris by Abd-al-Karim Abu-al-Nasr stating that “Al-Zarqawi striving to compete with Bin-Ladin, planning big attack along the lines of 11 September.”

Reportedly, the Iraqi intelligence agencies have prepared a report on Abu-Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, the commander of the Tawhid wa Jihad group.

The BBC Monitoring report states: “Al-Watan has learned from informed European diplomatic sources that a prominent European country concerned with the course of events in Iraq received this Iraqi intelligence service report about Jordanian Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi (whose real name is Ahmad al-Khalayilah, age 38). This report contains the following basic information and elements”:

The European sources disclosed that the security and intelligence services in a number of European countries have information that Al-Zarqawi is ‘determined’ to carry out an operation similar to that of 11 September either in the United States or in one of the European countries.

• Al-Zarqawi's group bears the name Tawhid wa Jihad.


• Tawhid wa Jihad includes between 1000 and 1500 fighters from Iraq and from other Arab and Islamic countries.


• The group includes experts in explosives, projectiles, and various assault weapons.


• The inner group is composed of non-Iraqis that Al-Zarqawi has known for years.


• Some prominent members of Tawhid wa Jihad are:
  
  
  • Abu-Ali, a rocket expert who worked in the military system under Saddam Hussein's regime;
  
  
  • Abu-Muhammad, a former Lebanese soldier and an expert in the manufacture and use of explosives. Abu-Muhammad came to Iraq after the U.S. invasion. Prior to his arrival in Iraq, he had spent a few years in Denmark.


• The main headquarters of Tawhid wa Jihad is in the city of Al-Fallujah.


• The leadership of the group is composed of nine "commanders,” responsible for separate combat areas.


• The commander for Baghdad had been Umar Bazyani. has been apprehended and has revealed valuable information about the group. He has been replaced, but the identity of his successor was not revealed in the BBC report.


• The commander for the northern region is Husayn Salim.


• The commander for the Al-Anbar Province is Abdallah Abu-Azzam.


• The commander for Mosul is Abu-Tal’at.


• Al-Zarqawi’s deputy and chief aid is Abu-Mahdi al-Shami. It is believed he may be of Syrian nationality.


• The media department of Tawhid wa Jihad is supervised by Hasan Ibrahim.


• There are 500 fighters operating in Al-Fallujah, under the command of a soldier with the pseudonym of “Abu-Nawas al-Falluji.”


• There are 60 fighters operating in Al-Anbar, 50 in Baghdad, 50 in Samarra, 80 in Al-Diyali Province, and 150 fighters in Al-Qa’im near the Syrian borders.


• Al-Zarqawi’s movement possesses hiding places for weapons and explosives in several locations in Iraq.


• Tawhid wa Jihad wants to transform Iraq into a “hell” for Iraqis by keeping the war buringing and thereby preventing the establishment of a stable and legitimate government through elections. It also seeks to incite civil strife between the Sunnis and the Shi’is.


• According to European diplomatic sources, Abu-Mus’ab al-Zarqawi greatly admires the Al-Qa’idah leader, Usamah bin Ladin, but al-Zarqawi is not subordinate to him.


• Al-Zarqawi aspires instead to compete with Bin-Ladin for the leadership of “the hard-line jihadist Islamic movements.” Al-Zarqawi seeks to turn Iraq into a “new Afghanistan,” a theater for launching terrorist operations that can be exported globally.


• There is some dispute among the sources of the report over whether Al-Zarqawi was a connecting link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qai’dah. Some believe the communications between Iraqi officials and Al-Qai’dah were direct and carried out without the intercession of Al-Zarqawi.


• ”The European sources disclosed that the security and intelligence services in a number of European countries have information that Al-Zarqawi is ‘determined’ to carry out an operation similar to that of 11 September either in the United States or in one of the European countries. This will be accomplished with the help of secret networks and cells that belong to him and are active and concentrated in some of the European countries and, perhaps, even in the American theatre.”

Labels: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda, Al-Qa'idah, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad Group, Iraq, Osama bin Laden, September 11, Umar Bazyani

The New York Times reports that the Iraqi government is planning to release Rihab Rashid Taha soon. The official source denied that the release was related to the demands of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Tawheed Wal-Jihad (Unification and Holy War), the group that has beheaded two Americans, Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, and is threatening to do the same to Briton Kenneth Bigley.

UPDATE (from the Associated Press)
U.S.: Iraqi Prisoners Won't Be Released (Excerpt below) ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites)'s leader and U.S. officials moved quickly Wednesday to squelch the idea a top female germ-warfare scientist for Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) would be freed soon, after a senior Iraqi official said the decision had been made to release her. Iraqi militants who beheaded two Americans have threatened to kill a Briton unless female detainees are let go.

"We have not been negotiating and we will not negotiate with terrorists on the release of hostages. No release takes place unless I authorize it." Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi

After the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said there would be no immediate release of either of the two women in U.S. custody, Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said there were no immediate plans to free the detainees. Allawi's statement disputed an earlier statement by his Justice Department (news - web sites) that a decision was made to release one of them.

Allawi told The Associated Press that his government has begun reviewing the status of its detainees, including the two female scientists known as "Dr. Germ" and "Mrs. Anthrax" for their involvement in Saddam Hussein's biological weapons programs.

But he said the review process had nothing to do with the current hostage situation and had started weeks ago in Iraq.

Labels: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad Group, Ayad Allawi, biological weapons, Iraq, Rihab Rashid Taha

The group that seized three Western hostages this week, said to be Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Tawheed Wal-Jihad (Unification and Holy War), demands the release within 48 hours of all Iraqi women in prisons at Abu Ghraib, near Baghdad, and Umm Qasr, in the south of Iraq. The Associated Press reports that U.S. military deny holding any Iraqi women. Yet, the BBC and the Agence France Presse say otherwise: that the U.S. claims to hold just two Iraqi women. One of them is identified as Rihab Rashid Taha - the woman dubbed Dr Germ for her role in developing Iraqi biological weapons. The other woman is Huda Salih Mahdi Amash, known as Dr Anthrax, who was on the US-led coalition’s list of most wanted officials of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Agence France Press claims that Amash and Taha are detained in Abu Ghraib.

The three hostages - Briton Kenneth Bigley, and his US colleagues Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong - were abducted at dawn on September 16 in Baghdad. Groups claiming to have kidnapped two Italian women on September 7 have made similar demands. Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both 29, were abducted from the Baghdad office of an Italian aid organisation called A Bridge to Baghdad. Also taken were an Iraqi co-worker, Raad Ali' Abdul-Aziz, and an Iraqi woman, Manhaz Bassam, working for Intersos, another Italian aid agency.

The Ansar el Zawahri group, one of the groups claiming to have taken the Italian women, posted a message on an Islamic website that that "the crusading, Zionist, criminal Italian government must free faithful women Muslim prisoners from all crusading, Zionist, criminal jails on Iraqi territory." (“IRAQ: IRAQI GOVT REJECTS ULTIMATUM,” ANSA English Media Service, September 10, 2004). The other group that claims to hold the Italian women, “Islamic Jihad”, demanded, on the website Yaislaw.org, the withdrawal of all Italian troops from Iraq, but also made reference to the earlier demand of the release of all female Iraqi prisoners. (“IRAQ: FRATTINI HOPES FOR RESULTS ON ITALIAN HOSTAGES,” ANSA English Media Service, September 14, 2004)

Labels: Abu Ghraib, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad Group, Dr. Anthrax, Dr. Germ, Eugene Armstrong, hostages, Huda Salih Mahdi Amash, Iraq, Jack Hensley, Keneth Bigley, Rihab Rashid Taha