FREEBIRD

[ergo sum]

Sorry this is a long post.

Who is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and what were told about him???
The media and the message.

Posted on Fri, Jul. 25, 2003
German Terror Cell Linked to al-Qaida
Associated Press
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/6384145.htm

DUESSELDORF, Germany - A German investigator testified Friday that authorities linked the leader of a German-based terrorist cell to al-Qaida but could not confirm U.S. claims that the man was also in contact with Saddam Hussein.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the leader of the radical Palestinian group Al Tawhid and also believed to be the "leader of a wing within al-Qaida," federal agent Manfred Ehlenz said at the trial of Shadi Abdellah, accused of plotting attacks in Germany for the group.
In his February speech to the U.N. Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell said al-Zarqawi was being harbored by Iraq, evidence of an al-Qaida connection to Saddam.
Ehlenz said the Bundeskriminalamt - Germany's equivalent of the FBI - had linked al-Zarqawi to Hamas and Hezbollah, but never to Saddam.




The Guardian

No proof of Iraq, al-Qaeda links: analysts
By Julian Borger, Michael Howard and Richard Norton-Taylor
January 31 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/30/1043804465839.html
That case relies heavily on a man called Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian member of the al-Qaeda leadership who was wounded in the leg in the US-led bombing of Afghanistan. In late 2001, according to US intelligence sources, he sought medical treatment in Iran but was deported and fled to Baghdad, where his leg was amputated. Telephone calls he made to his family in Jordan were intercepted.
The question is whether Saddam Hussein's regime knew who he was and whether it offered him any assistance. "Yes, we have him telling his family I'm here in Baghdad in hospital, but he's not saying: 'And by the way, I'm getting all this help from Saddam'," a well-informed source in Washington said.



Debka
Iraq-al Qaeda Partnership to Target Gulf Oil Fields
DEBKAfile Special Intelligence Report
February 16, 2003, 2:32 PM (GMT+02:00)
http://debka.com/article.php?aid=260
Abu Musaab Al Zarqawi, identified in US secretary of state Colin Powell’s February 5 demonstration to the Security Council of al Qaeda’s links with Baghdad, is not only the commander of the 170 al Qaeda fighters based mainly in the south Lebanese port of Sidon and formed into a brigade of the Iraqi Kurdish radical Ansar al Islam. He also officiates as supreme al Qaeda supervisor of the network’s stocks of unconventional weapons and their distribution world wide. Zarqawi uses Baghdad and Damascus as his transport hub to orchestrate the operations of cells around the Middle East, Western Europe and the Persian Gulf, with active assistance from Iraqi and Syrian military intelligence. The Syrian service is also a joint custodian of Iraq’s forbidden weapons caches in Lebanon.



U.S.: Nine nations pledge troops
Iraq has 'weeks and not months' to disarm, White House says
01/31/2003
By RICHARD WHITTLE / The Dallas Morning News


Last month, Jordan arrested two men described as members of an al-Qaeda cell and charged them with Mr. Foley's killing.
Information Minister Mohammad Affash Adwan said at the time that the men received from Mr. al-Zarqawi machine guns, grenades and money to carry out terrorist attacks against embassies and diplomats in Jordan.
The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that Mr. al-Zarqawi, an international fugitive believed to be one of al-Qaeda's top chemical weapons experts, had a leg amputated in a Baghdad hospital after being wounded in Afghanistan.
"I am not making the case here that this is a 9-11 connection," Mr. Armitage said. But it is al-Qaeda's "thirst for the weapons of mass destruction – and our belief that if Saddam Hussein can pass them to people who will do us ill without being caught, he will do it – that gives us so much concern."


The Europeans Know More Than They Now Pretend?
by Michael A. Ledeen
National Review Online
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/230
February 11, 2003

Abu Musab Al Zarqawi's name and photograph have suddenly become front-page items in both the United States and Europe, ever since Secretary of State Colin Powell, in his speech to the U.N. Security Council, identified Zarqawi as an al Qaeda terrorist working out of Baghdad. European antiterrorist experts in Germany and France, who have arrested many of Zarqawi's followers in their countries, have vigorously denied any knowledge of a link with Iraq, but their many denials conceal facts they are suddenly reluctant to proclaim: The Zarqawi story is not limited to Iraq, and the terror network of which he is a crucial link extends from many Middle Eastern countries throughout Europe, and into the United States.

No doubt there is a connection between Zarqawi and Iraq — director of Central Intelligence George Tenet was not sitting right behind Powell to endorse a fantasy — but that is only a small part of the story. Zarqawi's footprints lead unerringly to Iran, whence he has directed murderous operations in Jordan and Western Europe. And one doesn't need anonymous sources to prove it: It's on the record in Germany and Italy, at a minimum. One large body of evidence is available from the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, Germany, in connection with the trial of one Shadi Abdallah.



February 20, 2003
Why Hasn't Saddam Killed Us All?
by Doug Bandow
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and a syndicated columnist.

http://www.cato.org/dailys/02-20-03.html
The administration points to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whom it links to al-Qaeda and who received medical treatment in Baghdad. The Ansar al-Islam group is said to include al-Qaeda soldiers and have established a poisons training camp.
It's not clear how much credence to give to information gleaned from American captives, however. They could hope to win favor with their interrogators or provoke another conflict with America.
Moreover, al-Zarqawi's ties to al-Qaeda are thin -- it is not a rigid organization with a well-defined membership. German intelligence says al-Zarqawi's al-Tawhid organization is more like an affiliate, and one focused on the Palestinians (and Jordan), not the United States. An American intelligence analyst argues that al-Zarqawi "is outside bin Laden's circle. He is not sworn al-Qaeda."








The War Against Bush
From the June 30, 2003 issue: They were split over Saddam, but Dems are united against the president.
by Stephen F. Hayes
06/30/2003, Volume 008, Issue 41
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/831zisax.asp

A mid-level associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an al Qaeda leader specializing in biological and chemical weapons, was captured in Baghdad shortly after the war. Al-Zarqawi, who also has ties to an al Qaeda splinter group, Ansar al-Islam, which operated in Kurdish-controlled Iraq, fled to Baghdad and received medical treatment after he was wounded fighting in Afghanistan. Colin Powell, in his presentation to the U.N. Security Council on February 5, 2003, spoke of al-Zarqawi and intelligence that he was operating a small cell from Baghdad. U.S. intelligence officials believe he remained in Baghdad as the war in Iraq began in mid-March, and may have fled to Iran following the conflict. On June 11, 2003, Knight-Ridder reporters revealed that U.S. troops in Baghdad captured "several suspected associates of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" and "suspected members of Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish Islamic extremist group."