Al-Qaeda seeks to cause a sectarian war between Iraq's Shiite majority the Arab Sunni minority.
The New York Times reports that a document asking for help to wage such a sectarian war has been made available to the Times. Believed to be written by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a suspected al-Qaeda operative, the document says extremists are failing to enlist support inside the Iraq, and have been unable to scare the Americans into leaving.
By attacking Iraq's Shiite majority al-Qaeda hopes to prompt a counterattack against the Arab Sunni minority. This would cause a "sectarian war" and rally the Sunni Arabs to the religious extremists. The document contends that a war against the Shiites must start before the Americans hand over sovereignty to the Iraqis. That is scheduled for the end of June.
According to the Times, American officials are confident the account was credible and said they had independently corroborated Mr. Zarqawi's authorship. The document was seized in a raid on a known al-Qaeda safe house in Baghdad, and did not pass through Iraqi groups that American intelligence officials have said in the past may have provided unreliable information.
The document constitutes the strongest evidence to date of contacts between extremists in Iraq and Al Qaeda.
In the period before the war, Bush administration officials argued that Mr. Zarqawi constituted the main link between Al Qaeda and Mr. Hussein's government. Last February at the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said, "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network, headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants."[. . .]
In the document, the writer indicated that he had directed about 25 suicide bombings inside Iraq. That conforms with an American view that suicide bombings were more likely to be carried out by Iraqi religious extremists and foreigners than by Hussein allies.
The document is also said to detail the difficulties the evildoers are experiencing in combating American forces and in enlisting supporters:
The Americans are an easy target, according to the author, who nonetheless claims to be impressed by the Americans' resolve. After significant losses, he writes, "America, however, has no intention of leaving, no matter how many wounded nor how bloody it becomes."The Iraqis themselves, the writer says, have not been receptive to taking holy warriors into their homes.
"Many Iraqis would honor you as a guest and give you refuge, for you are a Muslim brother," according to the document. "However, they will not allow you to make their home a base for operations or a safe house."
The writer contends that the American efforts to set up Iraqi security services have succeeded in depriving the insurgents of allies, particularly in a country where kinship networks are extensive.
"The problem is you end up having an army and police connected by lineage, blood and appearance," the document says. "When the Americans withdraw, and they have already started doing that, they get replaced by these agents who are intimately linked to the people of this region."
With some exasperation, the author writes: "We can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like what has happened in so many lands of jihad. Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases.
This document is good news. It demonstrates that the evildoers are having a tough time recruiting supporter in Iraq. Second, and I think more importantly, it is evidence that we are fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq. I would rather have the U.S. military engage the evildoers anywhere but in the U.S.
I don't agree with Hindrocket, at Power Line, who speculates that release of this document may mean that Zarqawi may already be in custody.
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