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.
| Something picked up in that safe house? |
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.
This could be the rationale behind the assassination of al-Hakim in the Shi’ite holy city of An Najaf, if true. Or the Sistani hit, for that matter.
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. Yet other interpretations may be possible, including that it was written by some other insurgent, but one who exaggerated his involvement.
"Shave, sir?"
"Thank you, Occam." |
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.
| Oooh! First level intel! Straight from the horsie's mouth... |
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.
| Active operations against the Shias would also tend to downplay Iranian involvement with Qaeda... |
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.
| Ayman communes with the spirit of Binny... |
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.
| Tough, getting rid of cowards when they're determined, isn't it? |
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