Letter To Zarqawi

The letter al Qaida's number two, al-Zawahri, wrote to al-Zarqawi, and which was captured by U.S. forces has been translated into English and is available at the national intelligence director's website.

According to the Associated Press, the letter laid out al Qaida's long-term plan: expel the Americans from Iraq, establish an Islamic authority, take the war to Iraq's secular neighbors, including Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, and finally a clash with Israel.

I haven't had a chance to read the captured letter yet. At Power Line, John Hinderaker offers some analysis of the letter to Zarqawi:

In fact, Zawahiri is evidently worried about how al Qaeda is doing in Iraq. His main purpose in writing the letter was to dissuade Zarqawi from the mass murder of Shia, and from releasing videos of beheadings. Zawahiri wrote:

[M]any of your Muslim admirers amongst the common folk are wondering about your attacks on the Shia. The sharpness of this questioning increases when the attacks are on one of their mosques... My opinion is that this matter won't be acceptable to the Muslim populace however much you have tried to explain it, and aversion to this will continue.

And if the attacks on Shia leaders were necessary to put a stop to their plans, then why were there attacks on ordinary Shia? Won't this lead to reinforcing false ideas in their minds, even as it is incumbent on us to preach the call of Islam to them and explain and communicate to guide them to the truth? And can the mujahedeen kill all of the Shia in Iraq? Has any Islamic state in history ever tried that?

Hinderaker sums it up nicely, "Zawahiri's letter is a valuable document. It lays out al Qaeda's strategy for victory in Iraq and the world. It demonstrates al Qaeda's growing unpopularity, its weakness and its vulnerability to American intelligence. And it protests feebly against al Qaeda's descent into unalloyed nihilism and sadism--the ultimate destination of all totalitarian creeds."