By Randa Habib
Agence France Presse, 24 August 2004.
AMMAN - The resistance to US and foreign troops in Iraq is becoming unified and now controls 70 percent of attacks, one of its leaders told AFP, adding that Jordanian extremist Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi had been given an ultimatum for violating its ideology.
“There is one leadership comprising Iraqis and other Arab nationals which heads 70 percent of the operations being carried out in Iraq against the Americans and those who cooperate with them,” said the source, who had close ties to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden up until three years ago.
The Iraq-based source, who declined to be identified and met an AFP correspondent in an Arab country outside Iraq, said “Zarqawi was given an ultimatum by the leadership of the resistance.
“They threatened to quash him by force” after he repeatedly violated Islamic ideology, and “the leadership of the resistance banned Zarqawi from publishing communiques and from violating (its rules),” he said.
He claimed that the beheading of US hostage Nicholas Berg attributed to Zarqawi in May had not been welcomed by the resistance leadership.
“There was no proof that he was a US agent, even if he was a Jewish American,” he said of Berg, the first of a number of hostages beheaded in Iraq by their captors.
“Our religion does not tolerate killing for the sake of killing. There must be proof of involvement” in pro-US activity, he said.
Killing Iraqi policemen or national guards “is legitimate because they are servile agents in the pay of the Americans and responsible for the death of hundreds of Iraqis”, he said.
The source said he “recognised Zarqawi’s profile” in the video of the beheading which was shown on an Al-Qaeda linked website in May.
According to the source, “Zarqawi is an ace when it comes to explosives and in planning military operations”,
“He received a protection from the resistance but now most of them are against him because of deep ideological differences,” he said.
The source said he, Zarqawi and others received military training at the Sada camp in Afghanistan.
“Before entering the camp ... we swore on the Koran not to use the technology that we would be taught against Muslims of Muslim countries,” he said.
Together with close aide Abu Annas al-Shami, a 36-year-old Jordanian of Palestinian origin whose real name is Omar Yussef, Zarqawi heads the Tawhid wal Jihad movement.
The United States blames Zarqawi for some of the bloodiest attacks in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March last year to oust president Saddam Hussein, and has placed a 25-million-dollar bounty on the Jordanian militant’s head.
Two hitherto unknown groups, Seif Allah and the Salvation Movement threatened in July to kill Zarqawi, branding him a “criminal” and an “apostate” unless he left Iraq immediately.
An Islamist website Tuesday ran a statement attributed to Zarqawi’s group claiming responsibility for an assassination bid on Iraq’s interim Environment Minister Mishkat al-Moumin.
AFP’s source said followers of Saddam “represent only 15 percent of the resistance” and are led by Ezzat Ibrahim al-Duri, former number two in the regime’s ruling Revolutionary Command Council who is still on the run.
“They are very useful to the resistance, particularly Saddam’s former intelligence officials who supply precious information on places and people,” he said.
The leadership comprises “Iraqis who lived in exile during Saddam’s reign but who are opposed to the US invasion of their country” as well as Arabs who want to help them “fight the American devil”, the source said.
The resistance itself counts in its ranks “Sunni and Shiite” fighters, who “coordinate and cooperate” with each other, including in Najaf, where militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr are fighting US and Iraqi government forces, although they each have their own autonomy, he said.
He also charged that Saudi “resistance fighters” are part of the resistance, which he said is financed by “wealthy Iraqis but mostly from Saudi nationals”.
The source said that the resistance recently decided that “most” of its operations will be carried out on “highways”, away from residential areas to avoid killing innocent civilians.
“Most of the attacks will now take place on the highway that cuts Iraq from north to south,” he said.
The resistance also uses more frequently “funnel-shaped bombs” which enables 90 percent impact to reach its targets, “therefore limiting any collateral damage”, he said.
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Citation: Randa Habib. “Iraqi Resistance Organising, Restrains Zarqawi: Leader,” Agence France Presse, 24 August 2004.
Original URL: http://archive.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=25295
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