Qaeda Video Vows Iraq Defeat for 'Crusader' US : USA News

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 25 —

A man identifying himself as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, appeared in a video released Tuesday calling the American effort here a "crusader" campaign and denouncing the efforts to form a new Iraqi government.

The 34-minute video, posted on a Web site used by jihadist groups, shows a man who appears to be Mr. Zarqawi, speaking and mesturing,
meeting with his lieutenants, and firing long bursts from an American machine gun in a stretch of empty desert. He has a mustache and a beard, wears black
fatigues and a cap, and at one point Identifies himself by name. He also refers to himself as "the brains of Al Qaeda in Iraq."

The video predicted American "defeat and humiliation" while praising the insurgents in Iraq and urging them on, saying at one point, "They are slaughtering your children and shaming your women."

"God almighty has chosen you to conduct holy war in your lands and has opened the doors of paradise to you," he said. "So mujahedeen, don't dare close those doors."

He also mocked President Bush and accused him of lying to the American people.

"Why don't you tell about the reality of your soldiers and their failure to fight?" he said on the video. "Why don't you tell your people about the soldiers who commit suicide? Why don't you tell your people that your soldiers cannot have any sleep without taking drugs, which makes them like animals?"

He said American troops were "driven by your generals, who are like the crusaders and evangelists, to the slaughterhouse."

Mr. Zarqawi, a Jordanian, is believed responsible for dozens of car and suicide bombings here that have killed and wounded thousands of Iraqi civilians. He also took credit for the November bombing of three hotels in Jordan that killed at least 57 people.

While the authenticity of the video could not be verified, an American official said Tuesday night that intelligence agencies had completed an analysis of the video and concluded that the speaker was Mr. Zarqawi. The man who appears in the video bears a strong resemblance to various photos the American and Jordanian governments have distributed of him.

If it is authentic, the video would be the first time that Mr. Zarqawi had willingly shown his face to the world. And it would amount to a public resurfacing after several months of obscurity.

In January, Mr. Zarqawi's group, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, declared that it had joined something called The Freedom Fighter Council with several other insurgent groups and submitted itself to the leadership of an Iraqi man, identified as Abdullah al-Baghdadi.

Al Qaeda then stopped taking credit for attacks altogether in Iraq, and the Freedom Fighter Council has not claimed responsibility for the kind of mass murder of civilians for which Mr. Zarqawi has been blamed.

Even so, the suicide attacks and car bombs have continued, and American officials said Mr. Zarqawi's group was the most likely culprit in the destruction of the Golden Shrine in Samarra, which had set off a wave of sectarian bloodletting and brought the country to the brink of civil war, one of his professed goals.

The video, titled "Address to the People," was part propaganda blast against the United States and President Bush, and part paean to the insurgency in Iraq. Though it makes references throughout to Al Qaeda, the video carried the signature of "The Freedom Fighter Council."

"Your mujahedeen sons were able to confront the most ferocious of crusader campaigns against a Muslim state," the speaker said, gesturing with an index finger. "They have stood in the face of this
onslaught for three years."

It wasn't immediately clear why Mr. Zarqawi would release such a video now. It was made public just two days after Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, released an audio tape accusing the West of a "Zionist-crusaders war on Islam," a statement similar in parts to Mr. Zarqawi's.

Many experts believe that there are elements of a rivalry between Mr. Zarqawi and Mr. bin Laden, despite the declaration in 2004 that Mr. Zarqawi was submitting himself to Mr. bin Laden's leadership. While Mr. bin Laden has been in hiding since late 2001, presumably in Pakistan, Mr. Zarqawi has become the world's most active terrorist.

The video released Tuesday opens with an excerpt of a speech by Mr. bin Laden urging men to take up a jihad against the West, and in it, the man identified as Mr. Zarqawi refers to Mr. bin Laden as "our prince."

everal other explanations for releasing the video also suggested themselves, including the possibility that the timing was meant to coincide with the first steps toward a new Iraqi government, which was agreed on last week after a five-month deadlock. The government is made up of leaders from the country's Shiite majority, as well as Kurds and Sunnis. The Sunnis form the backbone of the guerrilla insurgency.

Indeed, American and Iraqi officials have been hoping for months that the greater inclusion of Sunnis in the democratic process could begin to marginalize insurgents and terrorists like Mr. Zarqawi, who have hidden among the population.

In a letter obtained by American forces in January 2004 and believed to have been written by Mr. Zarqawi, the Jordanian expressed concern that his efforts in Iraq could be undermined by a functioning democracy. In the video, the Iraqi government is singled out.

"By God, you will have no peace in the land of Islam," the speaker says. "Your dreams will be defeated by our blood and by our bodies. What is coming is even worse."

He then refers to the Shiites as "Rawafidh," which means, roughly, "rejecter."

"We believe that any government made up of rejecter or godless Kurds or people who call themselves Sunnis is only a collaborators' government, and that it would be a sword in the Islamic nation's body," he said.

Throughout the video, the man claiming to be Mr. Zarqawi spoke in classical Arabic, which did not reveal the Jordanian accent with which he is believed to speak ordinarily.

The video could have been intended to dispel any notion that Mr. Zarqawi is dead or unable to lead his movement. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia said last year that Mr. Zarqawi had been wounded while fighting in Iraq, and there was widespread speculation that he had died. Various statements, including ones believed to have been made by him, asserted that he had recovered from his wounds. There was no mention of any wounds in the video posted Tuesday.

Mr. Zarqawi is perhaps the single most hunted man in Iraq, with the Americans offering a $25 million reward for information leading to his death or capture. His picture, particularly the one taken from a booking photo at a jail, hangs on the walls of American and Iraqi checkpoints here. There are unverified reports that Mr. Zarqawi was in either American or Iraqi custody at some point after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003.

The man in the video cuts a vigorous figure. When he holds up the heavy machine gun, he shows his bare forearms. The scenery surrounding him is mostly flat and brown and bare, suggesting any number of places in Iraq or the Middle East.

In another frame, he is shown poring over a map, and in another he is meeting with someone referred to in a caption as "one of the commanders in Anbar Province," a large area in western Iraq.

Unlike Mr. Zarqawi, the other men in the video are masked. At one point in the tape, a printed imperative flashes across the screen.

"Don't forget to pray for us," it says.

News Source : The New York Times Company