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| Iraq |
| Zarqawi Moves His Headquarters to Baghdad |
| 2005-11-09 |
| DEBKA - Magic 8 Ball Department: According to intelligence data reaching the American command, the Jordanian terrorist chief, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, commander of al Qaeda Iraq, has left the Sunni-dominated Anbar province bordering on Syria after two years. In mid-October he is described as driving into Baghdad in mid-October in a convoy of six Iraqi military vehicles stolen from US-Iraqi bases in the north. All the travelers, including the boss, were clad in new uniforms of high Iraqi army officers. They breezed past the roadblocks guarding the town’s entrances without arousing suspicion. Indeed some of the Iraqi security officers manning them saluted the fake officers. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources add: the convoy rolled in to the northeastern, Sunni district known as the Seven Wells, to be greeted by the local commander Emir Abu Yashak and his men. Yashak was given the job of setting up a secret command center and several safe houses for the new arrivals to work out of, as well as escape routes and facilities should the Americans uncover the new hideouts. It is the first time that US forces and intelligence know for sure where Zarqawi is located. They know he is now in Baghdad. A week later, the al Qaeda chief, fully aware that the Americans had pinned him down geographically, went into action. Monday, October 24, three truck bombs driven by suicide bombers exploded at two hotels housing foreign journalists and contractors in central Baghdad. At least 20 Iraqi security guards and passers-by were killed. Al Qaeda then returned to its offensive to frighten Arab and Muslim missions into exiting the Iraqi capital, by abducting and executing two Moroccan embassy employees. A Sudanese working at his country’s Baghdad embassy was killed Wednesday, Nov. 9. A day earlier, al Qaeda gunmen targeted a another two members of the Saddam Hussein trial defense team, killing one, wounding another, after murdering the first lawyer last month. A large question mark now hovers over the resumption of the crimes against humanities trial awaiting the deposed dictator and seven senior associations on Nov. 28. The surviving defense counsel want the trial moved abroad. Zarqawi’ plan of action for his new base was summarized by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s al Qaeda experts: 1. Multi-weapon, multi-casualty, coordinated attacks on Americans and other foreigners working in Baghdad that are hideous enough to shut down and put to flight diplomatic missions and foreign companies, international aid organizations, journalists and the foreign technical teams employed in constructing and operating Iraq’s new infrastructure. But Zarqawi’s overriding goal, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s counter-terror sources. It is to cast the Iraq capital into such a state of turmoil and dislocation as to make it impossible to hold parliamentary elections as scheduled on December 15. This would bring to a halt moments before its consummation the entire democratic cycle on which Iraq has been moving forward this past year. The al Qaeda commander rates this objective so high that he has tied himself down to Baghdad and so restricted his freedom of movement, which was unfettered in the wide open spaces of Anbar province. At the center of the action instead of behind the scenes, he is also more vulnerable to capture or being killed. But the terrorist chief may not have had too many options, given three new circumstances. One, the mounting international pressure on Bashar Assad’s regime may remove Syria as his and al Qaeda’s rear base and escape hatch under a revamped regime or even a new ruler. In Anbar near the Syrian border, he would have laid himself open to a collaborative Syrian-American turned against him. Two, new American military tactics took heavy toll of his forces and forced them into retreat. They have no answer for the updated American military tactic of rolling large forces with massive firepower from one location to the next, after thoroughly purging each one. This tactic is workable in the desert reaches and outlying villages of Anbar, but not in a city with millions of inhabitants like Baghdad. This American tactic may have put Zarqawi and his terrorist legions to flight; but it is not applicable after they are embedded in Baghdad. Three, this successful US tactic not only uprooted terrorist bases but inflicted heavy losses running to hundreds of fighting men. In Baghdad, Zarqawi believes he commands a fresh pool of fighting men to refill his depleted ranks, namely, the 90,000 Palestinians who are being dispossessed by the Shiite government of Ibrahim Jaafari. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #8 My sources place him in Paris. |
| Posted by: Master of Obvious 2005-11-09 18:40 |
| #7 The reason why he is so desperate to stop the Dec. 15 elections is because he knows that the new Democratic Iraq and the U.S. are winning. But honestly how can anyone think Zarqawi's can actually win with his tactics of killing everyone who isnt a Sunni Wahhabi following Muslim. The only way he could possibly win now is if the US just left Iraq immediately. |
| Posted by: bgrebel9 2005-11-09 15:43 |
| #6 More proof we are winning. Terrorism is on the move and only the enablers are in eminent danger. Keep focused, make adjustments, offer rewards, put out the nets and, in time, Zark is ours. Oh, and don't expect to be notified, we will have to move him to a black location for endless conversations. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2005-11-09 14:41 |
| #5 If this is true why did Zark leave Baghdad? about the middle of last year. He's now coordinating his attacks from hell - where he currently resides. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-11-09 13:43 |
| #4 Required DTG, magnitude, and duration ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2005-11-09 13:20 |
| #3 Coordinates? |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-11-09 13:08 |
| #2 Zarqawi planning large-scale attacks in December seems to fit the larger Islamists plan, too. Other recent RB articles warn of an abundance of both Saudi nationals and large amounts of money from high places in the Kingdom. That means another porous southern border is being ignored as it would only divert our troops. A Fox news reporter walked across the border of Jordan and Iraq before the war and never saw anyone for some time. Syria isn't exclusively the problem, and lots of hot spots are simmering around the world. Bin Laden's longest period of silence to date make some suspect he's moving and ominously laying low. The Christmas threat to Italy, the imminent attack thwarted in Australia, and the coordinated European uprisings of militant Muslim youths against secular Muslim women driving their cars without veils and dropping off the kiddies at daycare must be all lies. They're torching their own resources and killing their own people, leaving the Elitests to stew in their own sewage, wondering how to contain it before it reaches Versailles and they put their heads on lampposts and drag them through the streets. Who gets to inspect French-run prisons when they interrogate the guy who eventually decapitates de Villepin and knows where the hidden nukes are? Of course, they need scapegoats when the superior French system fails with the whole world watching. The Leftists will somehow blame Cheney for all the forged intelligence, as he's diabolically plotting to take over the Euroweenies and the whole world and blame it on the down-trodden Muslim immigrants, and Jewish media manipulation is to take everyone's eyes off these evil capitalists responsible for all the world's ills....this must really be a communist KGB plot. But how does Halliburton predict future volcanic eruptions with blue smoke, explosions that "make the earth move under your feet", weeks in advance and even specify the date as November 9th, or 1-1-9? |
| Posted by: Danielle 2005-11-09 12:42 |
| #1 Yeah I have my grain of salt. If this is true why did Zark leave Baghdad? I remember when the videos of civilians getting heads lopped off and being held were said to originate in Baghdad areas. Not to mention I dont think Sadr who basicly owns an entire side of town of and who used to quardinate with Zark has had a falling out over the Shia collaborator commnents by Zark awhile back. |
| Posted by: C-Low 2005-11-09 12:14 |