Zarqawi Denies the Arrests of His Lieutenants, Declares the Formation of an All-Iraqi Suicide Squad … More below:
Meanwhile, “The war in Iraq finally hit home when my 3-year-old cousin Ahmed was seriously injured in a car-bomb attack,” writes Alternet’s Alya Shakir. … More below:
And former hostage Douglas Wood has sold his story to an Australian TV program for $400,000. (However, the runaway bride, through uber-agent Judith Regan, got $500,000 from NBC News’s (cough) Katie Couric people, who NEVER pay for news interviews. Just so you know.)
From Evan Kohlmann, terrorism expert and contributor to the Counterterrorism Blog:
Al-Qaida’s Jihad Committee in Iraq–led by wanted Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi–has officially denied recent claims that assistants loyal to Zarqawi have been arrested in Mosul and in Madrid, Spain. The statements came in the wake of an announcement last week by the Iraqi government concerning the capture of senior Al-Qaida leader Abu Talha al-Mosuli (a.k.a. Mohammed Khalaf Shakar). Al-Qaida’s Committee in Iraq has also declared the formation of an all-Iraqi suicide brigade–known as the Al-Ansar Martyrs Brigade–that was created as a branch of another Al-Qaida unit known as the Al-Baraa bin Malik Brigade.
Kohlmann links to three PDF files that are English translations of the documents c/o Globalterroralert.com:
- June 17 denial of the capture of assistants to al-Zarqawi
- June 21 denial of the capture of assistants to al-Zarqawi
- June 21 formation of the Al-Ansar Martyrs Brigade in Iraq
I can’t copy the documents without a password, so you’ll have to click above to view the contents.
______________________________
More from Alternet’s Alya Shakir:
… On Tuesday evening, I received a phone call from an aunt in Baghdad informing me that her 3-year-old son, my cousin Ahmed, had been seriously injured in a car-bomb attack in Baghdad. The crackling line and two-second delay did not hide the grief in her voice, nor my unenviable inability to say anything comforting.
My family often expresses gratitude that all of us survived three wars, one of which lasted eight years and saw all the family’s adult males conscripted. It was only after the last of these that my disabled grandfather and grandmother were robbed and beaten in their home, and forced to leave a beloved country for Jordan, where the government treats them like unwelcome (though paying) guests. …
Great. Sigh… no way to know who’s telling the truth, or if it actually matters in the long run. Considering that we have about 5 “20th highjackers”, killed a couple of guys at least three times, and who knows what all of all the other stuff, I’m thinking that there are any number of interchangeable elements/characters trotted out at convenient times.
An All-Iraqi Suicide Squad… what a tremendous mess all this has turned into. Or actually has been, from the beginning.
Great work finding all this stuff, Susan.
It’s hard to know, isn’t it, if it’s true. One thing that tells me it might be is that Evan Kohlmann is willing to post it, and he has a reputation to protect.
This means, to me, that Iraq is just going to get bloodier and bloodier. It’s tragic, really. RubDMC will have no shortage of photos for his incredibly daily series of diaries.
Oh I don’t doubt his posting of the story, or the pdfs and all that. I was more addressing the “no my lieutenants weren’t captured’ thing. No way to know if they were or not, because the Bush admin lies so much, and I’m sure Zarqawi would have few problems doing so as well, if he felt it was in the best interests of what he was trying to accomplish.
As for Iraq, I fully expect it to get more and more bloody, as people get more and more angry and also more and more adept at countering the moves and weapons of the US and other forces there. And bombing job seeking places and such.
well, all I have to say is ditto to the diary and all the comments.
I think Wilbanks got $500k for her book, not for the Couric interview.