New York Times
U.S. Says Files Seek Qaeda Aid in Iraq
Conflict
By DEXTER FILKINS
February 9, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 8 — American officials here have obtained a detailed proposal that they conclude was written by an operative in Iraq to senior leaders of Al Qaeda, asking for help to wage a "sectarian war" in Iraq in the next months.
By DEXTER FILKINS
February 9, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 8 — American officials here have obtained a detailed proposal that they conclude was written by an operative in Iraq to senior leaders of Al Qaeda, asking for help to wage a "sectarian war" in Iraq in the next months.
The Americans say they believe that Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has long been under scrutiny by the United
States for suspected ties to Al Qaeda, wrote the undated 17-page document. Mr.
Zarqawi is believed to be operating here in Iraq.
The document was made available to The New York Times on Sunday, with an accompanying translation made by the military. A reporter was allowed to see the Arabic and English versions and to write down large parts of the translation.
The document was made available to The New York Times on Sunday, with an accompanying translation made by the military. A reporter was allowed to see the Arabic and English versions and to write down large parts of the translation.
The memo says extremists are failing to enlist support inside the country, and have been unable to scare the Americans into leaving. It even laments Iraq's lack of mountains in which to take refuge.
Yet mounting an attack on Iraq's Shiite
majority could rescue the movement, according to the document. The aim, the
document contends, is to prompt a counterattack against the Arab Sunni minority.
Such a "sectarian war" will rally the
Sunni Arabs to the religious extremists, the document argues. It says a war
against the Shiites must start soon — at "zero hour" — before the Americans hand
over sovereignty to the Iraqis. That is scheduled for the end of June.
The American officials in Baghdad said
they were confident the account was credible and said they had independently
corroborated Mr. Zarqawi's authorship. If it is authentic, it offers an inside
account of the insurgency and its frustrations, and bears out a number of
American assumptions about the strength and nature of religious extremists — but
it also charts out a battle to come.
The document would also constitute the
strongest evidence to date of contacts between extremists in Iraq and Al Qaeda.
But it does not speak to the debate about whether there was a Qaeda presence in
Iraq during the Saddam Hussein era, nor is there any mention of a collaboration
with Hussein loyalists.
Yet other interpretations may be
possible, including that it was written by some other insurgent, but one who
exaggerated his involvement.
Still, a senior United States
intelligence official in Washington said, "I know of no reason to believe the
letter is bogus in any way." He said the letter was seized in a raid on a known
Qaeda safe house in Baghdad, and did not pass through Iraqi groups that American
intelligence officials have said in the past may have provided unreliable
information.
Without providing further specifics,
the senior intelligence officer said there was additional information pointing
to the idea that Al Qaeda was considering mounting or had already mounted
attacks on Shiite targets in Iraq.
"This is not the only indication of
that," the official said. The intercepted letter also appears to be the
strongest indication since the American invasion last March that Mr. Zarqawi
remains active in plotting attacks, the official said.
According to the American officials
here, the Arabic-language document was discovered in mid-January when a Qaeda
suspect was arrested in Iraq. Under interrogation, the Americans said, the
suspect identified Mr. Zarqawi as the author of the document. The man arrested
was carrying it on a CD to Afghanistan, the Americans said, and intended to
deliver it to people they described as the "inner circle" of Al Qaeda's
leadership. That presumably refers to Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Dr. Ayman
al-Zawahiri.
The Americans declined to identify the
suspect. But the discovery of the disc coincides with the arrest of Hassan Ghul,
a Pakistani described by American officials at the time as a courier for the
Qaeda network. Mr. Ghul is believed to be the first significant member of that
network to have been captured inside Iraq.
The document is written with a
rhetorical flourish. It calls the Americans "the biggest cowards that God has
created," but at the same time sees little chance that they will be forced from
Iraq.
"So the solution, and only God knows,
is that we need to bring the Shia into the battle," the writer of the document
said. "It is the only way to prolong the duration of the fight between the
infidels and us. If we succeed in dragging them into a sectarian war, this will
awaken the sleepy Sunnis who are fearful of destruction and death at the hands"
of Shiites.
The author offers his services and
those of his followers to the recipients of the letter, who American officials
contend are Al Qaeda's leaders.
"You noble brothers, leaders of the
jihad, we do not consider ourselves people who compete against you, nor would we
ever aim to achieve glory for ourselves like you did," the writer says. "So if
you agree with it, and are convinced of the idea of killing the perverse sects,
we stand ready as an army for you to work under your guidance and yield to your
command."
In the period before the war, Bush administration officials argued that Mr. Zarqawi constituted the main link between Al Qaeda and Mr. Hussein's government. Last February at the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said, "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network, headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants."
Around that time, the Americans
believed that Mr. Zarqawi was holed up in the mountains at the Iranian border
with Ansar al Islam, a group linked to Al Qaeda that is suspected of mounting
attacks against American forces in Iraq.
Since the war ended, little evidence
has emerged to support the allegation of a prewar Qaeda connection in Iraq. [ED:
What about the airplane found at Salman Pak and the foreign terrorists captured
there?] Last month, Mr. Powell conceded that the American government had found
"no smoking gun" linking Mr. Hussein's government with Al Qaeda.
In the document, the writer indicated
that he had directed about 25 suicide bombings inside Iraq. That conforms with
an American view that suicide bombings were more likely to be carried out by
Iraqi religious extremists and foreigners than by Hussein allies.
"We were involved in all the martyrdom
operations — in terms of overseeing, preparing and planning — that took place in
this country," the writer of the document says. "Praise be to Allah, I have
completed 25 of these operations, some of them against the Shia and their
leaders, the Americans and their military, and the police, the military and the
coalition forces."
But the writer details the difficulties
that he and his comrades have been experiencing, both in combating American
forces and in enlisting supporters. The Americans are an easy target, according
to the author, who nonetheless claims to be impressed by the Americans' resolve.
After significant losses, he writes, "America, however, has no intention of
leaving, no matter how many wounded nor how bloody it becomes."
The Iraqis themselves, the writer says,
have not been receptive to taking holy warriors into their homes.
"Many Iraqis would honor you as a guest
and give you refuge, for you are a Muslim brother," according to the document.
"However, they will not allow you to make their home a base for operations or a
safe house."
The writer contends that the American
efforts to set up Iraqi security services have succeeded in depriving the
insurgents of allies, particularly in a country where kinship networks are
extensive.
"The problem is you end up having an
army and police connected by lineage, blood and appearance," the document says.
"When the Americans withdraw, and they have already started doing that, they get
replaced by these agents who are intimately linked to the people of this
region."
With some exasperation, the author
writes: "We can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like what has
happened in so many lands of jihad. Our enemy is growing stronger day after day,
and its intelligence information increases.
"By God, this is suffocation!" the
writer says.
But there is still time to mount a war
against the Shiites, thereby to set off a wider war, he writes, if attacks are
well under way before the turnover of sovereignty in June. After that, the
writer suggests, any attacks on Shiites will be viewed as Iraqi-on-Iraqi
violence that will find little support among the people.
"We have to get to the zero hour in
order to openly begin controlling the land by night, and after that by day, God
willing," the writer says. "The zero hour needs to be at least four months
before the new government gets in place."
That is the timetable, the author
concludes, because, after that, "How can we kill their cousins and
sons?"
"The Americans will continue to control
from their bases, but the sons of this land will be the authority," the letter
states. "This is the democracy. We will have no pretexts."
Douglas Jehl contributed reporting from Washington for this article.