Seized Video Outtakes Show Another Side of Zarqawi
05 May 2006
Al-Qaida in Iraq leader hardly "the ultimate warrior," says coalition spokesman
By David I. McKeeby
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington – Coalition forces have captured a trove of terrorist documents, including some unflattering outtakes from a recent Internet propaganda video filmed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Jordanian-born leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.
“What you saw on the Internet was what he wanted the world to see,” said U.S. Army Major General Rick Lynch, spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, in a May 4 press briefing in Baghdad, Iraq. The Zarqawi video was posted to several Web sites on April 25, and replayed widely in the international media.
One scene in the released video, Lynch said, attempted to portray Zarqawi as “the ultimate warrior” firing a machine gun randomly at an unidentified target in the desert. However, the recovered, unedited video that Lynch played for journalists showed that the terrorist leader actually was unable to operate the weapon, asking for assistance from his aides as the machine gun jammed.
“[A] warrior leader,” said Lynch, “who doesn't understand how to operate his weapon system and has to rely on his subordinates to clear a weapon stoppage. It makes you wonder.”
“Why he’s their leader, I don’t know,” he later added.
Another video outtake shows Zarqawi handing his weapon to an assistant and walking away in what Lynch pointed out were Western-style athletic shoes beneath his uniform. Other scenes showed the terrorists burning their hands on the heated barrel of the just-fired weapon.
The video clips were among numerous items captured in an April 25 raid on a terrorist safe house in Yusufiya, a town south of Baghdad being used as a launching pad for Zarqawi’s favored weapon of choice: foreign fighters used as suicide bombers. (See related article.)
“Ninety percent of the suicide bombers that Zarqawi employs are foreign fighters,” Lynch said, “We believe that he’s getting facilitation, foreign fighters and funds out of Syria.”
Suicide attacks, such as the one that killed nine Iraqis and wounded 44 others in Baghdad on the day of Lynch’s briefing, are the leading cause of “innocent men, women and children of Iraq … being killed or severely wounded,” the general said.
Since early April, Lynch reported, coalition forces have been executing a series of military operations seeking to reduce Zarqawi’s stable of suicide bombers. As a result, he said, 31 foreign fighters were killed and significant amounts of bomb-making materials and weapons were seized.
Other documents confiscated in the raids included Internet-generated maps, sketches of potential targets and detailed planning documents stating that al-Qaida in Iraq would limit future attacks in predominately Sunni areas of Baghdad in favor of a stepped-up campaign of violence aimed at “cleansing” the city of Shiites and individual Sunnis perceived to be opponents to Zarqawi’s organization.
Because the successful formation of a democratically elected unity government in Iraq is tantamount to mission failure for al-Qaida, Zarqawi “is clearly trying to drive a wedge between the sectarian population,” Lynch said. (See related article.)
But operations are continuing to take a toll on the terrorists, Lynch said, noting that since January 2005, Iraqi and coalition forces have killed or captured 161 members of Zarqawi’s leadership. (See related article.)
“We believe it's only a matter of time until Zarqawi is taken down,” Lynch said. “It's not if, but when.”
A transcript of the Lynch briefing is available on the Multinational Force Iraq Web site; a video link to the briefing is available on the Pentagon Channel Web site.
For more information, see Iraq Update and Response to Terrorism.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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