Further Proof Al-Zarqawi Myth Created By The U.S.

[Gold9472]

Zarqawi is dead, claims Baghdad imam

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayA...on=focusoniraq

16 September 2005

PARIS - Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, is dead but Washington continues to use him as a bogeyman to justify a prolonged military occupation, an Iraqi Shia cleric said in an interview published here on Friday.

Sheikh Jawad Al Kalesi, the imam of the al-Kazemiya mosque in Baghdad, told Le Monde newspaper: “I don’t think that Abu Musab Al Zarqawi exists as such. He’s simply an invention by the occupiers to divide the people.”

Kalesi claimed that Zarqawi was killed in the Kurdish northern region of Iraq at the beginning of the US-led war on the country as he was meeting with members of the Ansar Al-Islam group affiliated to Al Qaeda.

“His family in Jordan even held a ceremony after his death. Abu Musab Al Zarqawi is therefore a ploy used by the Americans, an excuse to continue the occupation. It’s a pretext so they don’t leave Iraq.”

Kalesi made the comments to Le Monde as he passed through Paris after attending an inter-religious gathering in the eastern French city of Lyon organised by the Roman Catholic Sant’Egidio Community,

[Gold9472]

Here is the Le Monde article stating that Zarqawi died in 2002.

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,...-689730,0.html

Unfortunately, it's in french. The title was translated into, "Abou Moussab Al-Zarkaoui died. His name is used by the occupiers to stay in Iraq"

[Gold9472]

Here's what wiki had to say...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi

"There are rumors that Zarqawi is dead because no sightings of him have been confirmed since 2001. In one report, the conservative British newspaper Daily Telegraph described as myth the claim that Zarqawi was the head of the "terrorist network" in Iraq. According to a U.S. military intelligence source, the Zarqawi myth resulted from faulty intelligence obtained by the payment of substantial sums of money to unreliable and dishonest sources. The faulty intelligence was accepted, however, because it suited US government political goals, according to an unnamed intelligence officer.[14] The Zarqawi myth has also been purported to be the product of U.S. war propaganda designed to promote the image of a demonic enemy figure to help justify continued U.S. military operations in Iraq[15], perhaps with the tacit support of terrorist elements wishing to use him as a propaganda tool (a sort of Al-Qaeda Ronald McDonald).

In March 2004, an insurgent group in Iraq issued a statement saying that Zarqawi had been killed in 2002. The statement said that he was unable to escape the missile attack because of his prosthetic leg. His followers claimed he was killed in a US bombing raid in the north of Iraq [16]. The claim that Zarqawi had been killed in northern Iraq "at the beginning of the war", and that subsequent use of his name was a useful myth, was repeated in September 2005 by Sheikh Jawad Al-Khalessi, a Shiite imam. [17]

On 24 May 2005 it was reported on an Islamic website that a deputy would take command of Al-Qaeda while Abu Musab al-Zarqawi recovered from injuries sustained in an attack. Later that week the Iraqi government confirmed that Zarqawi had been wounded by U.S. forces, although the battalion did not realize it at the time. The extent of his injuries is not known, although some radical Islamic websites called for prayers for his health. There are reports that a local hospital treated a man, suspected to be Zarqawi, with severe injuries. He was also said to have subsequently left Iraq for a neighbouring country, accompanied by two physicians. However, later that week the radical Islamic website retracted its report about his injuries and claimed that he was in fine health and was running the jihad operation."

[beltman713]

Sounds sort of like Emmanuel Goldstein from 1984.

[Gold9472]

Well, I have no doubt that this story could be true. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to verify past the blogs that his family held services for him.

[PhilosophyGenius]

Intersting post. It also should be noted that when Powell talked about Zarqawi during his U.N. speech, he refered to him as a Palesinian who had his leg amputated in Bagdad. Both facts which are untrue. And a former prison inmate who did time with him said he was illiterate and not very smart. But who knows if this story is true or not because this Imam has no real proof.

[lopakhin]

It also should be noted that when Powell talked about Zarqawi during his U.N. speech, he refered to him as a Palesinian who had his leg amputated in Bagdad.

In fact, just to say, I've just read Powell's UN speech, and he didn't say he had had his leg amputated.

[PhilosophyGenius]

In fact, just to say, I've just read Powell's UN speech, and he didn't say he had had his leg amputated.

Oh, but that what was being said by the govnt at the time. When that info was corrected it didnt make any news.

[PhilosophyGenius]

I just remembered something. Not too long ago the govn't released a video tape the discovered in Iraq of Zarqawi just chillin in safe house. Was that old footage of him and the military is pretending it's new? Who knows. But my guess is he's really still alive and the dude leading the jihad in Iraq.

[Gold9472]

Al-Zarqawi myth U.S.'s own creation

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.ph...0-043430-6135r

By Jennifer Schultz
UPI Correspondent
Published November 10, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The United States created the myth around Iraq insurgency leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and reality followed, terrorism expert Loretta Napoleoni said.

Al-Zarqawi was born Ahmad Fadil al-Khalayleh in October 1966 in the crime and poverty-ridden Jordanian city of Zarqa. But his myth was born Feb. 5, 2003, when then-Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the United Nations the case for war with Iraq.

Napoleoni, the author of "Insurgent Iraq," told reporters last week that Powell's argument falsely exploited Zarqawi to prove a link between then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. She said that through fabrications of Zarqawi's status, influence and connections "the myth became the reality" -- a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"He became what we wanted him to be. We put him there, not the jihadists," Napoleoni said.

Iraq's most notorious insurgent, Napoleoni argues, accomplished what bin Laden could not: "spread the message of jihad into Iraq."

In an article of Napoleoni's in the current November/December issue of Foreign Policy, she said, "In a sense, it is the very things that make Zarqawi seem most ordinary -- his humble upbringing, misspent youth and early failures -- that make him most frightening. Because, although he may have some gifts as a leader of men, it is also likely that there are many more 'al-Zarqawis' capable of filling his place."

The myth of al-Zarqawi, Napoleoni believes, helped usher in al-Qaida's "transformation from a small elitist vanguard to a mass movement."

Al-Zarqawi became "the icon" of a new generation of anti-imperialist jihadists, she said.

The grand claim that al-Zarqawi provided the vital link between Saddam and al-Qaida lost its significance after it became known that al-Zarqawi and bin Laden did not forge a partnership until after the war's start. The two are believed to have met sometime in 2000, but al-Zarqawi -- similar to a group of dissenting al-Qaida members --rebuffed bin Laden's anti-American brand of jihad.

"He did not have a global vision like Osama," said Napoleoni, who interviewed primary and secondary sources close to al-Zarqawi and his network.

A former member of al-Zarqawi's camp in Herat told her, "I never heard him praise anyone apart from the Prophet [Muhammad]; this was Abu Musab's character. He never followed anyone."

Al-Zarqawi's scope before the Iraq war, she continued, did not extend past corrupt Arab regimes, particularly Jordan's. Between 2000 and early 2002, he operated the training camp in Herat with Taliban funds; the fighters bound for Jordan. After the fall of the Taliban, he fled to Iraqi Kurdistan and set up shop.

In 2001, Kurdish officials enlightened the United States about the uninvited Jordanian, said Napoleoni. Jordanian officials, who had still unsolved terrorist attacks, were eager to implicate al-Zarqawi, she claimed. The little-known militant instantly had fingerprints on most major terrorist attacks after Sept. 11, 2001. He was depicted in Powell's speech as a key player in the al-Qaida network.

By perpetuating a "terrifying myth" of al-Zarqawi, the author said, "The United States, Kurds, and Jordanians all won ... but jihad gained momentum," after in-group dissension and U.S. coalition operations had left the core of al-Qaida crippled.

In her article, Napoleoni says, "[Zarqawi] had finally managed to grasp bin Laden's definition of the faraway enemy, the United States." Adding that, "Its presence in Iraq as an occupying power made it clear to him that the United States was as important a target as any of the Arab regimes he had grown to hate.

"... The myth constructed around him is at the root of his transformation into a political leader. With bin Laden trapped somewhere in Afghanistan and Pakistan, al-Zarqawi fast became the new symbolic leader in the fight against America and a manager for whoever was looking to be part of that struggle," she wrote.

The author points to letters between al-Zarqawi and bin Laden that have surfaced over the past two years, indicating the evolution in their relationship, most notably a shift in al-Zarqawi which led to his seeking additional legitimacy among Sunnis that bin Laden could help bestow.

In late December 2004 -- shortly after the fall of Fallujah -- the pan-Arab network Al-Jazeera aired a video of what was bin Laden's first public embrace of Zarqawi and his fight in Iraq.

"... We in al-Qaida welcome your union with us ... and so that it be known, the brother mujahid Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the emir of the al Qaida organization [in Iraq]," bin Laden declared.

Napoleoni believes that al-Zarqawi, however, is still largely driven by the romantic vision of a restored Caliphate, and that his motives still are less political than some other factions participating in the Iraq resistance.

She questions whether he has actually devised a plan for "what he will do, if and when, he wins."