Zarqawi Blamed For Bombing Surge
An escalation in violence in Iraq can be traced to an order from terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to a senior U.S. military official.
The official, who told reporters he did not want to be named after briefing them, said the recent upsurge in violence can be attributed to a meeting in neighboring Syria about a month ago by lieutenants of the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi, who may have attended.
The meeting was held to try and ramp up terrorist attacks, particularly suicide car bombings, throughout Iraq, the official said.
Al-Zarqawi, according to information obtained by the U.S. military, was angered by a perceived lull in the militant campaign, the official told reporters. His call for increased attacks sparked the deadly wave of violence.
He said there had been 21 car bombings in Baghdad during May, compared with 25 such attacks in the capital in all of 2004.
"There was recently a gathering of insurgents in Syria with al-Zarqawi and his leadership to have some additional discussions or guidance with the insurgents," the official said.
The official also said the military obtained intelligence from detainees, Iraqi military sources and data from the field to corroborate that the meeting took place in Syria, which the United States has accused of doing too little to curb the flow of foreign fighters into the country.
"He (al-Zarqawi) allegedly was not happy with how the insurgency was going, the government was getting stronger and coalition forces not being defeated. Some intelligence reports from captives showed that al-Zarqawi directed people to start using more vehicle-borne devices and use them in everyday operations," the official said.
Al-Zarqawi is Iraq's most-wanted terrorist and has a $25 million bounty on his head — the same as for Osama bin Laden.
In other recent developments:
Also on Wednesay, an Internet audiotape, purportedly posted by the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, denounced Iraq's Shiites as collaborators with the Americans and called the country's rulers "apostates."
"What Sunnis have suffered and are still suffering from the Shiites is far worse than what they saw from the Americans," the speaker on the recording, purported to be al-Zarqawi, 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 of the rulers of this nation."
The authenticity of the tape, posted on an Internet Web forum where al Qaeda in Iraq statements are often posted, could not be independently verified. The voice resembled that on previous al-Zarqawi tapes.
The spiraling violence has killed nearly 500 people since the April 28 announcement of the new Shiite-dominated government. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari recently pledged to use "an iron fist" to prevent an outbreak of sectarian violence — which al-Zarqawi and his al Qaeda in Iraq group have tried to foment.
The insurgency also was discussed Tuesday during a historic visit to Baghdad by Iran's foreign minister, who pledged to secure his country's borders to stop militants from entering Iraq.
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said the "situation would have been much worse" in Iraq if Tehran was supporting the insurgency as the United States claims.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said after meeting Kharrazi that militants have infiltrated from Iran "but we are not saying that they are approved by the Iranian government."
Ties between the neighbors improved after the ouster of Saddam, who led an eight-year war against Iran during the 1980s that killed more than 1 million people. Relations remained cool after that war, with Iran supporting anti-Saddam groups and the former Iraqi leader hosting the Mujahedeen Khalq, an Iranian militia fighting the Shiite religious regime in Tehran.
Al-Jaafari, who led anti-Saddam militiamen based in Iran during his two-decade exile, has said Iraq now wants positive relations with Iran.