Insurgents Attempting to Ferment 'Civil War' in Iraq Sought Al Qaeda Help
Stirring of Ethnic Conflict Meant to Disrupt Transfer of Iraqi Sovereignty
By Ariana Eunjung Cha and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, February 9, 2004; 4:43 PM
BAGHDAD, Feb. 9 -- Insurgents in Iraq sought the help of senior leaders of the al Qaeda terrorist network for a plan to spark a "civil war" that would pit the country's religious and ethnic groups against each other and prevent a transfer of sovereignty from U.S. occupation authorities to Iraqis, U.S. officials said today, citing a document seized from an al Qaeda courier.
The officials said the plan was outlined in a 17-page letter that appealed to al Qaeda leaders outside Iraq for help in waging a campaign of violence meant to destabilize the country. The document was on a computer disk that was found in a raid on a terrorist safe house in Baghdad about a month ago, officials said.
The U.S. officials said the disk was in the possession of a courier who was trying to leave the country, possibly to go to Afghanistan and to deliver the letter to Osama bin Laden, the head of the al Qaeda network. The existence of the document was first reported in today's New York Times.
In the document, which was described at a press briefing here today, the author brags about already having accomplished 25 operations and proposes more attacks that would push the country toward civil war.
"Their strategy is to provoke sectarian warfare in an effort to tear this country apart," said Dan Senor, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition occupying Iraq.
The document outlines what is "clearly a plan on the part of outsiders to come in this country and spark civil war, create sectarian violence [and] try to expose fissures in this society," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a U.S. military spokesman in Iraq. He told a news conference in Baghdad that U.S. authorities believe the document is "credible."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in Washington that the letter shows anti-U.S. insurgents in Iraq "haven't given up." He told reporters, "They're trying to get more terrorists into Iraq and trying to create more terrorist organizations." He said the letter was "very revealing" about "the thinking of at least one part of the insurgency."
Kimmitt said the apparent author of the letter was Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian who escaped from Afghanistan in 2001 after the fall of the radical Islamic Taliban government. Kimmitt said the author may have been responsible for suicide bombings that have killed Shiite Muslim religious figures, ethnic Kurdish leaders, United Nations officials and Iraqi security forces and employees of the U.S.-led occupation authority.
Senior U.S. officials in Baghdad said they believe Zarqawi was involved in the bombings of the United Nations building in the capital, a shrine in the holy city of Najaf and the main gate of the coalition headquarters -- attacks that together killed nearly 200 people and wounded hundreds more. While authorities said they do not consider Zarqawi to be an al Qaeda "member," the FBI describes him as a "close associate" of bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda leaders.
"It is clear that the type of techniques that we have seen in certain of these attacks . . . have the fingerprints . . . of al Qaeda and other foreign fighters," Kimmitt said. He said the document provides "more evidence . . . that al Qaeda is in fact conducting operations, or people who would like to work with al Qaeda are operating inside this country."
The document is described by coalition officials as a "business proposal" of sorts. The author expresses frustration that previous strikes have not driven out the U.S.-led coalition and that some Sunnis are helping in the reconstruction and have joined the Iraqi security forces. He asks for assistance from al Qaeda to accelerate the insurgents' activities.
The letter marks a breakthrough in U.S. investigations into the violence that has plagued Iraq for months. It lends support to previous theories about who is coordinating the attacks and their motivations, and it shows progress in the coalition's efforts to break up terrorist cells operating in Iraq. Kimmitt described the document as "almost a sign of desperation."
One U.S. official who has studied the document described it as "rhetorical" and "flowery," saying this has made it difficult for analysts to get an accurate translation for some portions. Indeed, an Arabic copy that was briefly shown to reporters begins with a few lines of poetry.
The author focuses on what he calls the "zero hour," June 30, the day when the U.S.-led coalition is scheduled to hand over sovereignty in Iraq to a provisional Iraqi government. He refers to attacks on "Americans" -- a term that military analysts believe refers to all coalition forces.
"We are going to target and strike them in their military, political and religious depth," the document warns.
While the author does not mention specific people as targets, it refers to political and religious "leaders," as well as security forces that operate in the communities where they live, an apparent reference to the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.
Intelligence analysts who have looked at the document believe that stage one of the plan was to attack Shiite Muslims to further divide them from the Sunni Muslims who have traditionally ruled Iraq. Shiites, who make up about 60 percent of Iraq's population, were brutally suppressed under the three-decade rule of former president Saddam Hussein. Bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network is also led by Sunni Muslims.
The second stage of the plan would be to attack the ethnic Kurds who inhabit the northern part of the country and have sought autonomy, if not outright independence, from Baghdad.
"This gives you a very apocalyptic look at what this country would be like," one U.S. official said.
U.S. officials said a suspected courier for al Qaeda named Hassan Ghul had been carrying the disk when he was arrested during a raid. During interrogation, they said, Ghul said Zarqawi wrote the document. Intelligence analysts independently verified its authenticity through other sources, U.S. officials said.
Senor told the news conference that the document "talks about a strategy of provoking violence targeted at [Shiite leaders] in the hope that it will result in reprisals against other ethnic groups within this country, all focused on provoking ethnic sectarian warfare . . . in the hope of tearing this country apart."
In the deadliest suicide bombing in Iraq since the fall of Hussein last year, a leading Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim, was killed in August along with more than 90 other people when a car bomb blew up after he delivered a sermon at Iraq's holiest Shiite site, the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf.
Last week, the country's most influential Shiite figure, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, reportedly was targeted for assassination in Najaf, aides said, but his office later denied that any attack had taken place. Kimmitt said today that Sistani "is currently in a safe location" and "is being protected by his own people."
Senor said the captured letter shows that "the terrorists . . . understand that failure to defeat us in Iraq will be a major setback for their overall terror war." He said that terrorists operating against U.S. forces in Iraq are coming under increasing pressure from the more than 150,000 Iraqis who have joined security forces in their country. Senor said the document also shows that "the terrorists are focused on the June 30th handover of sovereignty" in a recognition that as a result of the scheduled transfer of political power on that date, "the terrorists will be isolated and it will be harder and harder for them to operate."
Kimmitt said that while the apparent author of the letter, Zarqawi, "takes great pride" in the attacks he has organized, "they haven't had the effect that he wanted, which is to destroy coalition resolve, prevent the stand-up of an effective Iraqi security apparatus, and prevent the uniting of Iraq, north, south and center." He said the letter conveys the sense that "this guy is disappointed in his lack of success."
But he said terrorists' efforts in Iraq may result in "more and more spectacular attacks" before the June 30 transition.
Zarqawi is believed to have fled to Iran with other senior al Qaeda leaders after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in November 2001. He subsequently slipped into neighboring Iraq to wage a guerrilla war against U.S. forces, Arab intelligence sources have said.
He is wanted by Jordan for the assassination of a U.S. diplomat, Laurence M. Foley, in 2002 and for a planned hotel bombing in Amman on the eve of the 2000 millennium celebrations.
The FBI is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the capture of Zarqawi, whom the agency describes as a "close associate" of bin Laden and Saif Adel, the Egyptian military chief of al Qaeda. The FBI gives Zarqawi's age as 37, but other reports have said he is 43.
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