Qaeda Figure Zarqawi Says He's in Iraq for 'Holy War'

[seruriermarshal]

Qaeda Figure Zarqawi Says He's in Iraq for 'Holy War'

DUBAI (*******) - A statement purportedly from al Qaeda-linked militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi says he is in Iraq (news - web sites), waging "holy war" against U.S.-led occupation forces to establish a Muslim state.



"I am in Iraq now waging holy war with my brothers to establish a nation for Islam and a state for the Koran," said the Arabic-language statement claiming to be from Zarqawi and recently posted on Islamic Web sites.


Zarqawi and his group, Jama'at al-Tawhid and Jihad, have claimed a series of suicide bombs and attacks in Iraq on U.S. troops and on Iraqi officials in recent months.


Washington accuses Zarqawi of being the leading operative of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network in Iraq. It says Zarqawi, who has a U.S. bounty of $10 million on his head, beheaded American Nicholas Berg in Iraq this month.


The Jordanian-born Islamic militant said he had earlier been in Afghanistan (news - web sites) which he described as "the land of hopes where we are establishing the faith of God."


An earlier statement said to be from Zarqawi, which was included in a video of Berg's beheading, called on Muslims to take up the sword of Islam in Iraq against America.

[2Sheds_Jackson]

Hey now wait a minute. I thought Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism, jihad, al Qaeda et-al...so what's up with this?

Personally, I think that half the reason the administration went into Iraq was precisely to give the T's a convenient place to go and meet Allah. It's far better than having them all come to the US to do it. Seems to be working?

[Mr Gently Benevolent]

Hey now wait a minute. I thought Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism, jihad, al Qaeda et-al...so what's up with this?

Personally, I think that half the reason the administration went into Iraq was precisely to give the T's a convenient place to go and meet Allah. It's far better than having them all come to the US to do it. Seems to be working?
I personally do not think for one minute that they expected to meet the kind of resistance this far into the occupation if they had I would have expected them to have planned for it. Its not that they cannot deal with the resistance they are meeting, it just seems that not enough homework was done beforehand on the effects of a coalition occupation up to 3 years long. Many clever heads at the time of the invasion of Iraq said we should hold on for a while as Saddam was going nowhere and doing nothing of any concern to the US or Europe just keep him on a tight lead until we completely vanquish Al-Q.

[scm77]

Hopefully he will be sent to Allah as soon as possible. :fork:

[Mr Gently Benevolent]

Hopefully he will be sent to Allah as soon as possible. :fork:
Nope captured and held captive for life deny him the glory that he seeks.

[Tane Angle]

ZQO/JTJ wasn't overly active in Iraq prior to the war. They're there because we are there. We represent nice, easy targets, sitting ducks, and so they came for the turkey shoot.

While it was not intentional, certainly, ZQO has exposed itself somewhat in attacks on Westerners there(though relatively few attacks are committed by ZQO). But yes, some people do argue that it is good to lure them out. Are we trading soldiers' lives for ambassadors? Would ZQO have simply hit US Embassies in the region had we not gone into Iraq? Yes. But we can't really fight terrorism in a war of atrition.

AQO/ZQO have shown their ability to trade 19 of their personnel for 3000 of ours. If the estimate of 18,000 personnel is even remotely true, that's about 54,000,000. 54 million dead? Granted, some might be less deadly per terrorist, but some might be more so. Or some might not be suicide attacks, and bombers might be able to launch repeated attacks. We can't fight a war of attrition, it won't work.

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...