Looks like Fred called this one right ...
The recent bomb blasts in Istanbul are neither isolated incidents nor simply local actions. All indications point towards global Islamic radicals determined to create a Muslim backlash against the West through more suicide attacks in both Turkey and Europe. Initial European intelligence reaction suggests that the Istanbul suicide blasts were the work of the Tauheed group led by a Jordanian national of Palestinian origin, Abu Mosub al-Zarqawi, who, it is speculated, planned, helped finance and executed the attacks in conjunction with Turkish counterparts.
Tauheed = Tawhid, which is Zarqawiâs own mob the same way that JI was Hambaliâs. Al-Qaeda is basically a terror franchise and al-Tawhid is Zarqawiâs piece of the pie.
Al-Zarqawi, known in senior al-Qaeda circles, has recently been the focus of revived United States attempts to link al-Qaeda with Saddam Hussein. Last year, he had a leg amputated in Baghdad after being wounded in Afghanistan. During al-Zarqawiâs two-month stay in Baghdad, the US has claimed, many al-Qaeda affiliates established cells in the city. Al-Zarqawi subsequently disappeared.
The US has offered up to US$5 million for clues leading to his arrest, as he is now accused of recruiting fighters in Iraq. The reward appears on the programâs website, which is run in coordination with the State Departmentâs Bureau of Diplomatic Security. "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has had a long-standing connection to senior al-Qaeda leadership and appears to be highly regarded among al-Qaeda and a close associate of Osama bin Laden and Saif al-Adel," the announcement says. Al-Adel, for whom there is also a large reward, is thought to be bin Ladenâs number three and has been reported as being in Iran.
I thought Zarqawi was now worth $25,000,000, a sign of just how far heâs moved up in the food chain over the last year. Incidentally, Saif al-Adel is said to have ordered the latest bombings in Riyadh so we have al-Qaeda active on at least three fronts right now: Iraq, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Any word out of Afghanistan since the Taliban retook those districts in Zabul?
Abu Mosub al-Zarqawi is also thought to have provided weapons and money in connection with the murder of US diplomat Laurence Foley in Jordan last October. He is known to have been very active since the fall of the Taliban government in Afghanistan two years ago, and has variously been tracked in Iranâs Kurdish region, northern and central Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. He is said to have actively developed networks with smaller groups in these regions, and he coordinated his activities, for example, with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Ansar al-Islam, a militant Iraqi Kurdish group in northern Iraq. This monthâs Istanbul attacks indicate that he also spent some time in the country making contacts with local radical groups there.
The only Turkish al-Qaeda affiliate that Iâm familiar with is the Bayat al-Imam crew, but if Zarqawiâs subcontracted the Raiders or the Turkish Hezbollah it would seem to imply that heâs got himself yet another prime source of cannon fodder to make use of.
Al-Zarqawi appears to favor US and Jewish targets, as well as their allies. Initially, his main playing field was Palestine, and later on Jordan, where he established a network to bring down the monarchy which, he believes, is hand-in-glove with "Zionist and US interests".
They donât seem to be doing much lately, though that border shooting was also reportedly a Zarqawi operation. This guy has more connections than SPECTRE these days ...
Al-Zarqawi spent some time in Afghanistan, where he operated independent training camps for Jordanians. His Tauheed group is a part of bin Ladenâs International Islamic Front, an umbrella body that groups organizations which accept bin Laden as a mentor and his pan-Islamic ideology.
Interesting, thatâs the first solid info on al-Tawhid being part of bin Ladenâs International Front.
Al-Zarqawiâs known modus operadi, gleaned from the few members of his network who have been captured by European intelligence, does not involve guerilla warfare, thus it is unlikely, as the US now claims, that he has any serious involvement in Iraq. Rather, his networks in different countries aim to take on the interests of the US and its allies, or specifically, in the language of the jihadis, "take on the Jewish and US unholy nexus".
Iâd still say the Jordanian embassy bombing probably fits his MO, ditto with a lot of the more coordinated suicide bombings like the UN and the Red Cross. Assuming al-Qaedaâs even active in the day-to-day guerrilla war (Iâm more inclined to attribute that to the Baathists), my guess would be that al-Hijazi or Abu Iyad is the pivot man there. 
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