The U.S. is offering $5 million for help in capturing Abu Musab al-Suri, an al-Qaeda weapons expert who is an ally of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a leader of the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq, the State Department said. Al-Suri, also known as Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, trained terrorists in poisons and chemicals at the Derunta and al-Ghuraba terrorist camps in Afghanistan, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said in a statement in Washington. The $5 million bounty for al-Suri, offered through the State Department's Rewards for Justice program, may reflect growing U.S. concern with al-Qaeda's effort to develop and use weapons of mass destruction, said R.P. Eddy, a former National Security Council counter-terrorism director in the Clinton administration. ``The significance of the reward could be because of Zarqawi's role in Iraq, but I am more inclined to believe it is one of the first public steps in the Bush administration's invigorated focus on keeping WMD out of the hands of terrorists,'' said Eddy, now managing director of Gerson Lehrman Group, a research firm for investors in New York. The timing of the reward also may reflect growing U.S. awareness of al-Suri's activities as U.S. military forces explore sites in Iraq that had been controlled by al-Zarqawi and his allies, said Lorenzo Vidino an analyst at the Investigative Project, a Washington-based counter-terrorism institute.
| Popped his pointy little beturbanned head up above the grass, did he? |
 U.S. forces in Iraq are in the second week of attacks in Fallujah, which the U.S. considered a haven for insurgents, foreign fighters and terrorists. Residents of the city harbored al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who claimed responsibility for kidnappings and beheadings of foreigners in Iraq as well as other attacks, according to U.S. officials. Al-Suri, a Syrian with dual Spanish nationality, is wanted by authorities in Spain on suspicion of organizing the train bombing in March in Madrid that killed nearly 200 people. The State Department has no comment on the reasons behind the timing of the reward offer for al-Suri, spokeswoman Tara Rigler said. While al-Suri may have weapons expertise, his more significant role might be in providing religious justification for al-Zarqawi's actions, Vidino said. Al-Zarqawi is a ``high school drop-out, not very educated,'' Vidino said. ``When Zarqawi releases all these communiques with very high-level references to the Koran and Islamic writings, Zarqawi wouldn't be able to do that by himself. He'd need somebody to do it. And people think it's al-Suri.''
| Actually, he could be quite capable of doing it himself. An intelligent man or woman can educate himself or herself. Lincoln was self-educated, for instance. I think it's pretty dangerous to underestimate an enemy like that. |
| He's managed to survive in an extremely violent, destructive culture in the middle of a war. Has to have some smarts. |
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