| IRAQ Prime Minister Iyad Allawi says Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi is "mentally ill," after the Jordanian fugitive, believed to be a key Al-Qaeda operative, put a $US285,000 ($390,544) bounty on his head. "Zarqawi is mentally ill. He is a pariah rejected by all nations," Mr Allawi said in Amman today, on the first leg of a tour of several Middle Eastern countries. "He does not frighten me," Mr Allawi added. "That man is neither a Muslim nor an Arab. He is a true pariah. The proof is that he hides in a black hole and tries to spread his poison against the Iraqi people." Mr Allawi was responding to journalists' questions about the reward, posted on an Islamist website in the name of the Khalid ibn al-Walid Brigade, the "military wing" of Zarqawi's Tawhid wa al-Jihad (Unification and Holy War) group. The statement offered to the Iraqi people "a reward of 200,000 Jordanian dinars ($390,544) for the one who cuts the head of Allawi." |