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| quote: | Originally posted by NYCTrancefan
If this is true then it would be absolutely awesome, I'm kind of iffy when Al-Jazeera has breaking news. We'll see who it is eventually. Hope its not like one of those Fox terror alerts. |
Leaflet Says Extremist Al-Zarqawi Killed Dead then...Alive Now..Maybe dead again..or perhaps alive or maybe dead.
| quote: | Originally posted by washingtonpost.com on March 4, 2004
Leaflet Says Extremist Al-Zarqawi Killed
By LEE KEATH
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 4, 2004; 10:10 AM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A Jordanian extremist suspected of bloody suicide attacks in Iraq was killed some time ago in U.S. bombings and a letter outlining plans for fomenting sectarian war is a forgery, a leaflet signed by a dozen alleged insurgent groups said. A senior U.S. official denied that claim.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in the Sulaimaniyah mountains of northern Iraq "during the American bombing there," according to the eight-page leaflet circulated this week in Fallujah, a city 30 miles west of Baghdad that is a hotbed of anti-U.S. insurgency activity.
There was no way to verify the authenticity of the leaflet. It was signed by 12 groups, including several cited by U.S. officials in the past including the Ansar al-Sunna Army and Muhammad's Army.
It said al-Zarqawi was unable to escape the bombing because of his artificial leg.
The leaflet did not say when al-Zarqawi was supposedly killed, but U.S. jets bombed strongholds of the extremist Ansar al-Islam in the north last April as Saddam Hussein's regime was collapsing.
A senior U.S. official said the claim al-Zarqawi is dead was false and that the United States had information showing the Jordanian militant was alive well after the bombing campaign.
In al-Zarqawi's hometown in Jordan, an associate of his family told The Associated Press that according to the family, al-Zarqawi had been in contact with his mother until four months ago, when the communication ended after police came to question the mother.
In a telephone call Thursday to the family home, a woman answered and said, "He's not in contact with us. We don't know anything about him. Don't call again." She then hung up.
Before the Iraq conflict began last March, Secretary of State Colin Powell said al-Zarqawi received hospital treatment in Baghdad after fleeing Afghanistan.
U.S. intelligence sources said he apparently was fitted with an artificial leg. He was believed to have taken refuge in northern Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion, and then possibly moved on to Iran. It was widely believed that he then was still coordinating closely with Ansar al-Islam in Kurdish areas.
In February, the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq made public an intercepted letter it said was written by al-Zarqawi to al-Qaida leaders, detailing a strategy of spectacular attacks to derail the planned June 30 handover of power to the Iraqis. U.S. officials say al-Zarqawi may have been involved in some of the series of suicide bombings this year in Iraq.
The leaflet in Fallujah said the "fabricated al-Zarqawi memo" has been used by the U.S.-run coalition "to back up their theory of a civil war" in Iraq.
"The truth is, al-Qaida is not present in Iraq," the leaflet said. Though many Arabs entered the country to fight U.S. troops, only a small number remain, the group said.
"We had to help hundreds of them leave for their own protection because they were only a burden on the resistance. It was difficult to hide them" from Iraqi informers cooperating with U.S. forces, it said.
Leaflets by "mujahedeen" groups allegedly involved in fighting the U.S. occupation are distributed frequently in Fallujah and other cities of the "Sunni Triangle," the region north and west of Baghdad where guerrilla activity is highest. U.S. officials have said Muhammad's Army may be an umbrella groups of former Iraqi intelligence and security agents and that Ansar al-Sunna Army may be an offshoot of Ansar al-Islam.
A little over a year ago, Jordanian authorities named al-Zarqawi as the mastermind behind the 2002 murder of Laurence Foley, a 60-year-old administrator of U.S. aid programs in Jordan.
Al-Zarqawi was born Ahmad Fadeel Nazzal al-Khalayleh in the Jordanian city of Zarqa, an industrial city 17 miles northeast of Amman from which he took his nom de guerre.
The owner of a car repair shop in Zarqa said he was told by al-Zarqawi's nephew that al-Zarqawi had been in contact with his mother, Umm Sayel. In their last communication four months ago, al-Zarqawi called his mother at a Jordanian hospital where she was undergoing surgery, the garage owner told AP on condition of anonymity.
The phone was tapped and police soon arrive to question Umm Sayel, and since then al-Zarqawi has not restored contact, the man said he was told by the nephew.
He would not give the nephew's name or disclose his whereabouts. The AP repeatedly has tried to speak with al-Zarqawi's family.
Al-Zarqawi, believed to be in his 30s, left Jordan for Afghanistan in the late 1980s. He later returned and in 1992 was jailed 7 1/2 years for militant activities in the kingdom. He left Jordan in August 1999 for Pakistan.
In a German court last year, Shadi Abdellah, a Palestinian on trial for allegedly plotting to attack Berlin's Jewish Museum and a Jewish-owned disco, testified he was working for al-Zarqawi. He said they met in Afghanistan.
German authorities have reportedly said they believe al-Zarqawi was appointed by al-Qaida's leadership to arrange attacks in Europe.
Moroccan government sources said a group blamed for bombings in May that killed 45 people in Casablanca got its orders from al-Zarqawi. In Turkey, officials said he was believed to have played a role in bombings that killed 63 at two synagogues, the British consulate and a British bank in Istanbul in November.
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AP writer Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
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MSNBC: Iraq militants claim al-Zarqawi is dead
FOX News: Iraqi Group Threatens to KILL Zarqawi
| quote: | Originally posted by FoxNews.com on July 06, 2004
Iraqi Group Threatens to Kill Zarqawi
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq — A group of armed, masked Iraqi men threatened Tuesday to kill Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi if he did not immediately leave the country, accusing him of murdering innocent Iraqis and defiling the Muslim religion.
The threats revealed the deep anger many Iraqis, including insurgent groups, feel toward foreign fighters, whom many consider as illegitimate a presence here as the 160,000 U.S. and other coalition troops.
In a videotape sent to the al-Arabiya television station, a group calling itself the "Salvation Movement," questioned how al-Zarqawi could use Islam to justify the killing of innocent civilians, the targeting of government officials and the kidnapping and beheading of foreigners.
"He must leave Iraq immediately, he and his followers and everyone who gives shelter to him and his criminal actions," said a man on the video.
The video marked the first time that an Iraqi group made such a public threat against al-Zarqawi.
It was issued a day after U.S.-led coalition forces, who have been targeting al-Zarqawi, launched an air strike in the restive city of Fallujah on a suspected safe house used by his followers. The attack killed 15 people, witnesses said.
In the video, three men, their faces covered with Arab headscarves, were flanked by rocket propelled grenades and an Iraqi flag. The man speaking had a clear Iraqi accent.
"We swear to Allah that we have started preparing ... to capture him and his allies or kill them and present them as gift to our people." the man said. "This is the last warning. If you don't stop, we will do to you what the coalition forces have failed to do."
Al-Zarqawi, said to be connected to Al Qaeda, is believed to be behind a series of coordinated attacks on police and security forces that killed 100 people only days before U.S. forces handed over power to an Iraqi interim government.
His followers have also claimed responsibility for the beheading of American businessman Nicholas Berg (search) and South Korean translator Kim Sun-il (search).
The attacks have led to fears that religious fanatics and Saddam loyalists may be joining forces to fight both the multinational force and the new Iraqi government, increasing violence that has wracked the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein 14 months ago.
The military announced Tuesday that three U.S. Marines assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were killed while on duty in Western Iraq. Two died in action Monday in Anbar province, while a third died of his wounds later Monday.
In the town of Latifiya, 25 miles south of Baghdad, two police officers were seriously injured Tuesday when gunmen opened fire on their patrol car before fleeing, said police Lt. Hazim Abdul-Kadhim.
In the town of Yayieji, about 20 miles southwest of the northern city of Kirkuk, a roadside bomb exploded, just missing an Iraqi police car, but severely injuring a bystander, according to Col. Sarhat Qadir from the Kirkuk police force.
Four explosions were heard outside Fallujah on Tuesday, but the nature of the blasts was not known.
In Baghdad, the U.S. military said Tuesday that troops had fired on a car that failed to heed warnings to stop at a checkpoint, killing one child and wounding a second.
Explosions also rocked the southern city of Basra on Tuesday, when a roadside bomb targeting a British military convoy blew up, killing one civilian and injuring two, said Capt. Mushtak Taleb, an Iraqi police spokesman. No British forces were hurt.
NATO officials met Tuesday with Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan as part of a fact-finding mission to carve out a possible future role for the alliance in the country.
"The purpose of this visit is to find out what needs to be done and present that in a report, and the political decision has to be taken in Brussels," said U.S. Adm. Greg Johnson, head of the delegation that included British and Italian military officials.
The interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi (search) has been trying to find a way to stem violence.
On Monday, U.S forces dropped two tons of bombs on a purported militant safe house in Fallujah, killing 15 members of one family, according to witnesses, and turning the building into a 30-foot-deep pit of sand and rubble.
The Fallujah attack was the fifth airstrike in the past two weeks in the area where the U.S. military says al-Zarqawi's network has safe houses.
Rescue workers in Fallujah picked up body parts after the U.S. airstrike, witnesses said. Video from Associated Press Television News showed the explosion had thrown bricks blocks away. Blood was splashed on a nearby wall.
Men gathered at the pit where the house had been and pulled out clothes, including a young child's shirt, from the rubble.
"Is this acceptable to the Iraqi government?" asked an angry man at the scene, who declined to identify himself. "Where are human rights?"
Yasser Abed, 17, said 15 members of his family, including 12 children, were killed in the air strike. Abed, his father and a brother were out of the house at the time of the attack, he said. Hospital officials said at least 10 people were killed. Previous U.S. air strikes in Fallujah have killed dozens.
The military said it had dropped four 500-pound bombs and two 1,000-pound bombs. The attack used guided weapons and underscored the resolve of coalition and Iraqi forces "to jointly destroy terrorist networks within Iraq," the military said.
Allawi issued an unprecedented statement saying his government provided intelligence for the location of the al-Zarqawi safe house so the strike could "terminate those terrorists, whose booby-trapped cars and explosive belts have harvested the souls of innocent Iraqis without discrimination, destroying Iraqi schools, hospitals and police stations."
Allawi appealed to all Iraqis to report the activities of insurgents.
"The sovereign Iraqi people and our international partners are adamant that we will put an end to terrorism and chase those corrupt terrorists and will uproot them one by one," he said in the statement.
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