The notorious terrorist leader of the Tawhid-i-Jihad group Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi has officially sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in a statement released through various Islamist websites.
Zarqawi has long been at the very least tangentally connected with al-Qaeda, and has been a close associate of bin Laden for some time. Dan Darling has done a large amount of research on Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda ties and has concluded that Zarqawi has been a de facto member of al-Qaeda for some time. This new evidence only formalizes what has been a long working relationship between Tawhid-i-Jihad and al-Qaeda. Before Operation Enduring Freedom, Zarqawi ran a terrorist training camp near Herat, Afghanistan. No terrorist group operated in Afghanistan without the explicit permission of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Furthermore, Zarqawi also operated a Qaeda training center near Kabul as well.
Al-Qaeda is a nebulous organization with tentacles reaching everywhere, and this document only formalizes what has been a long relationship between Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda, stretching back from well before 9/11. It also understates why just “going after al-Qaeda” is insufficient in this war. Does “al-Qaeda” include splinter/associate groups like Tawhid-i-Jihad or Ansar-i-Islam? What of Hizb’Allah which is believed to have cooperated with al-Qaeda in the recent attacks at Taba? Arbitrarily singling out al-Qaeda as being the sole threat is not a tenable strategy for dealing with the threat of Islamist terrorism in general. This war is and always has been larger than just Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The only way to end the threat is to continue to work towards ending the autocracy, tyranny, and xenophobia which spawns terrorists like Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi.
Congratulations. You have finally found your elusive Iraq/al-Qaeda connection. Unfortunately, our misguided foreign policy had to create it for it to exist.
Talk about missing the point here – Zarqawi was an associate of al-Qaeda and he was in Iraq long before the war. He planned and carried out the assassination of US diplomat Laurence Foley from Iraq right under Saddam Hussein’s nose.
9-11 terrorists were associates of Al-Qaeda and living in the US for years. Does that mean that the US is a haven for terrorists or a terrorist state? NO. The connection between Irak and Al-Qaeda is sill inexistent for the Pentagon. You may provide any other irrelevant link you want.
As we can see:
-Al Zarqaoui was not an al-Qaeda “agent” BEFORE this war, as he just pleadged allegeance TODAY!
-The war in Irak is just the perfect example of “what one should NOT do to fight terrorism”=>all the idiots of the world pass alliances to be labelled Al-Qaeda. Al-Zarqaoui may even re-evaluate the objectives of his mission considering this new call for global islamist terrorism. Fantastic Job Mr President! May the force (of the supreme court) be with you.
Well, I suppose it’s a good thing and Iraq-AlQueda connection wasn’t the reason for going to Iraq, right Mark?
vincent. There is a difference between terrorists mingling discretely among Americans, plotting their evils, and a known extremist boldly operating terrorist training camps with the knowledge and tacit approval of host countries. Do you know exactly who all the Arabs are in your country and what they are doing?
Other questions come to mind regarding this declaration by Zarqawi. Timing could prove significant too. Besides declaring Muslim unity during our elections, he may also be attempting to position himself as a possible successor to binLaden. There’s been some speculation on binLaden’s status in the absence of communications from him in a while. Zarqawi may also be looking to Al-qaeda for assistance as the coalition and Iraqi forces close in on them.
amy, true. Luckily, we went to Iraq for far more prudent reasons….the search for phantom WMD. Just some advice….Republican hawks like yourself should choose to refrain from touching the subject of why we went to war in Iraq. 😉
*If you can’t read the articles, don’t comment on them.*
Zarqawi was in Afghanistan. He was running a training camp at Herat as well as a Qaeda camp near Kabul. No one who didn’t meet with bin Laden’s approval would have been allowed to do so.
All the evidence points to Zarqawi being an al-Qaeda associate and _Tawhid-i-Jihad_ being a branch of al-Qaeda. By Vincent’s logic, al-Qaeda didn’t commit the atrocities at Madrid, since the terrorists there never swore allegiance to bin Laden either.
10/18/04
The real revelation in the story about Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi is that Osama ben Laden is almost certainly dead. He has not been seen in video or heard on tape since the war in Afghanistan was finished. The power of al-Qaeda to continue is based in part on the belief by his followers that he is still alive. Swearing allegiance to some one who never responds is an attempt to create the illusion that ben Laden is alive. I suspect that no one was prepared to take his place when he died, and having been untruthful from the start it is hard to admit that ben Laden is dead.
Lonnie Kendall
It’s fruitless to argue with ostrich-headed contrarians at this point about anything — much less the Iraq-al Qaeda connection. It doesn’t matter than there were clearly ties (as the Senate Intelligence Committee Report makes explicit) between al Qaeda and Iraq, or that Hussein most certainly was a real threat to provide WMD technology and support to terrorist splinter groups, who, while they go under a hundred different names (Aha! But they are NOT al Qaeda, so Bush lied, q.e.d.), nevertheless share the same goal: the destruction of Western civilization. You simply aren’t going to sway those intellectual gnats whose entire self-image rests with their knee jerk disestablismentism.
Jay,
Just in case you didn’t think about it: You are not my only source of information!! Moreover, it happens many times(*1000) that YOUR information is pure BS, direct from Foxnews or some random blog run by another of Bush’s wonk.
Just like Jeff G: Can I ask you a question: How on earth would your sentence “Saddam Hussein most certainly was a real threat to provide WMD technology” fit with the fact that he didn’t had any WMDs? You really got to explain how can anyone give something he doesn’t have!!
I did comment on this “news”:Zarqaoui pledges allegeance.” And my comment remains: He was not an Al-Quaeda agent before today (yesterday now). As I have learned from other information sources, his group was in contact with Al-Qaeda for years, but they couldn’t agree on how to work together. The discussion stopped for a few months, and today, thanks to the fantastic action of the president, they finally agreed on a common text (“With the force of Allah, we will unite to kill americans” for example). NOW, we can say that there is a link. NOT BEFORE.
Trice,
How do you know about this “tacit approval” by Saddam to have islamo-terrorist in his country? Seriously? Do you think that Saddam knew everything about all the arabs living in his country? 😉 Just in case you didn’t knew it, Irak was the only secular country in the region, very different from its neighbour, ally of the US, first petroleum reserves of the world, first provider of hijackers for 9-11: the Saudi Arabia. Wrong target to go to war? Well, the saudis weren’t under embargo for 15 years…they actually had weapons (WMDs I don’t know, but good US tanks, that’s for sure). The fact that Saddam was rewarding terrorists and requested to have “Allah” written on the flag is VERY recent, and is the only thing he could do to remain in charge of Irak: the embargo was pushing the population into poverty=>raise of religion.
Actually, we do have terrorists in France right now, and I’m sure you have some in the US right now as well. Do you think there is a tacit approval for this. I don’t. I think that there are terrorists in every country today. thank you Mr Bush for your splendid action.
Finally Jeff,
you’re trying to insinuate that all terrorists groups are the same whatsoever. This is untrue and stupid. The only common goal they share is the survival of their relatives. As long as your self-centered american conscience will tell you that some people around the world want to kill you because you’re american, you’ll be stuck in Bush’s logical warp zone. Get it: the only thing that can make a human being turn violent to the point of killing himself is the suffering of his familly. Palestinians terrorists hate israelis. They don’t hate israelis because they are jewish: they hate them because israelis prevent them from having a decent life.
Ben Laden dead? Maybe.
In Florida after having surgery: much more likely for a billionar.
Get it: the only thing that can make a human being turn violent to the point of killing himself is the suffering of his familly. Palestinians terrorists hate israelis. They don’t hate israelis because they are jewish: they hate them because israelis prevent them from having a decent life.
I think we can delete vincent from the category of ‘honest opponents’ now.
Oh, please Chris, put me in another of your boxes with a name on it, please, please, please!!
Would you care to argument your sayings? No you’re right, you shouldn’t even talk with a terrorist like me!
Yes. That box is labeled “people who don’t think Palestinians would erase Israel if they had the chance.”
We therefore don’t have enough common ground to even begin a rational argument, so there’s no point.
what’s the name of the box YOU put yourself in?
-people who think palestinians have a different gene that makes them very violent for no reason?
-people who think that palestinians are all racists?
-people that don’t see palestinians as human beings?
-people that don’t care about goïs (non-jewish)?
-people who like to watch war images?
Tell me? What’s your rationale?
If you consider that:
-Israel has the right to exist
-freedom of religion should be the rule everywhere
-but that religion should never rule national policies
-collective punishments should never happen
Then there is a ground for discussion. There always is ground for discussion, and the people who, like you, refuse the dialogue are those REALLY creating “terrorism”.
Vincent, we’re straying far from the topic of this post, so if you ask the same questions in a more appropriate thread, I promise I’ll answer them.
Yes you’re right, talking about our personal opinions on the ME really has nothing to do with an article on Zarqaoui and international terrorism.
The only thing I wanted to know from your reasoning I already know: at some point of a debate with another human being (yes, I am french but still human), you may very well refuse to debate for the reason that your opponent is not “honest” (I don’t think I cheated!).
That’s good enough for me to know that democracy is not your real goal, nor is it in your core values.