- WASHINGTON -- The deadly
efficiency of the foreign-led militants behind a series of terror attacks
and assassinations across Iraq became clear yesterday with the release
of a chillingly professional promotional video.
-
- The group of militants is led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
the Jordanian blamed by the US for many of the deadliest attacks over the
past year, and for wielding the knife that decapitated the American hostage
Nick Berg. The video's starkest message to the fledgling government of
Iraq is that Zarqawi's men - many of them foreign fighters - are now well
organised, embedded inside Iraq, and can strike at a time and method of
their choosing.
-
- The sophisticated tape includes scenes such as a suicide
bomber heading off on a mission, waving goodbye to his chanting colleagues
as he climbs into the cab of a tanker packed with explosives. "I sacrifice
myself for my religion," he says before leaving. Moments later the
explosion can be heard and a massive ball of fire fills the screen as the
suicide bomber reaches his target: an American position under a bridge
west of the troubled city of Fallujah.
-
- The video also shows the suicide car bomb attack on 17
May that killed the Iraqi Governing Council leader Izzadine Saleem. The
car in which the cameraman is sitting is so close that the windscreen is
cracked by the force of the blast. Seven others were killed in the attack.
-
- The release of the tape, produced by the group Attawid
wal Jihad (Unity and Jihad), came yesterday as US forces killed at least
10 people in a missile strike on a house in Fallujah. In recent days there
have been a series of such strikes on what the US says are "safe houses"
used by Zarqawi's network. It was not immediately clear whether the Americans
were acting with the agreement of the new "sovereign" Iraqi government.
-
- Allies of the Zarqawi organisation are believed to be
holding the abducted US Marine Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun, who has been
threatened with beheading. Yesterday he was reported to have been moved
to "a place of safety" after he pledged not to return to the
American armed forces. The al-Jazeera television station said it had received
a statement from a group, calling itself the Islamic Movement. In the statement
the group did not say where Cpl Hassoun had been taken, al-Jazeera said.
-
- Al-Jazeera quoted this group on 27 June as saying it
had kidnapped Cpl Hassoun and threatened to kill him. On Sunday, a group
calling itself the Army of Ansar al-Sunna denied reports on Islamist websites
that he had been decapitated.
-
- The tape, complete with graphics and professional-quality
editing and camerawork, is the latest raising of the stakes by militants
since the return of partial sovereignty to Iraq by the US last week. "This
video speaks of a danger more organised than the one viewed through the
snippets of the intelligence and glimmers of insight the public [has] previously
seen," wrote Michael Ware, the Time magazine reporter who obtained
the tape.
-
- "It does not bode well for the immediate future
of Iraq's fledgling government, nor the ultimate exit plans for the 130,000
US troops still [in Iraq]."
-
- Mr Ware, who has interviewed a number of insurgents over
the last year, said the tape was intended to send a very clear message
to coalition troops and foreigners. "We can get you. You cannot stop
us."
-
- He also said the video, like a corporate recruitment
product, was designed to lure new fighters - and funding - to Zarqawi's
network. "It is a very, very sophisticated part of Zarqawi's information
campaign, stamping him as the star of the new global jihad inspired by
Osama bin Laden," Mr Ware said.
-
- The video suggests that foreign fighters have been able
to develop a reasonably sophisticated network inside Iraq. The footage
features interviews and statements from Saudis, Algerians, Libyans, Jordanians
and fighters from other countries. One bomber claims to have lived in Italy
and played hockey for a leading club.
-
- It also appears to confirm the central role played by
Zarqawi within the insurgents' community. The voice of the Jordanian-born
extremist, currently the most wanted man in Iraq, only appears briefly
on the recording and it seems to have been taken from an audio tape he
released last month threatening the new Iraqi government.
-
- The footage contains scenes of what appear to be the
final days and hours of militants as they ready themselves for suicide
missions. Superimposed on scenes of them praying and relaxing are individual
shots of the men explaining why they are carrying out the attacks. "How
can I live peacefully at a time when the holy and sacred places have been
violated, and the country is usurped and the infidels are encroaching on
our country and humiliating our religion, which is ... our pride?"
asks one bomber as armed, masked men stand behind him. "How can I
live, and others live, while our sisters are prisoners of the Americans
in Iraq?"
-
- In the tape the group also claims responsibility for
an attack in Nasiriyah in November last year in which 18 Italian soldiers
were killed, and the truck bombing last summer of the UN headquarters in
Iraq, in which the special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello died. There is
also footage from an attack on the Mount Lebanon Hotel in March. In that
instance the cameraman is standing so close to the scene that the camera
crackles as flames roll towards it.
-
- Last week US authorities increased their reward for Zarqawi
to $25m (£14m), from $10m. His network is also blamed for the murder
of the South Korean contractor Kim Sun Il, who was beheaded last month
after being taken hostage.
-
- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
|
