TIME: A Chilling Iraqi
Terror Tape
Sunday, July 04, 2004
A new video from jihad leader Zarqawi provides
insight into the nature of the fighters — and the
fight
By
MICHAEL WARE
Jihad leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian
terrorist and the most wanted man in Iraq, this
weekend released a telling window into his
organization, Attawhid wal Jihad, or Unity and Jihad.
In a slickly produced hour-long video Zarqawi lays
bare the milieu of his suicide bombers, their
safehouses, their rituals and their targeting
guidelines. Given directly to TIME, the video is a
bold, menacing statement of the group's intent and
capability. The subtext of this disturbing tape is
that for the U.S. this is likely to be a long, drawn
out fight in Iraq against a committed, well-organized
enemy.
The tape contains many chilling scenes. When the
chairman of the U.S. appointed Iraqi Governing
Council, Izzedine Salam, then the country's highest
Iraqi official, was assassinated last month in a car
bomb Zarqawi quickly claimed credit. Now he shows the
act, in graphic footage shot from a parked car: A
convoy of white SUVs disappears down a Baghdad
street, followed a moment later by a ball of flame
and explosion so intense the windscreen through which
the cameraman films cracks before your eyes.
One thing the video makes clear is that foreign
fighters have developed a sophisticated organization
in Iraq. Interviews on the tape, and living wills
made by suicide bombers, show how Muslim men have
been brought to the country through well-defined and
clearly funded channels. Appearances are made by
Saudis, Algerians, Libyans, Jordanians and others;
the video even claims that one bomber had lived in
Italy and played hockey for a premier club.
This is also a statement of Zarqawi's rise in the
jihad community. Prior the Iraq war he was a marginal
figure in the larger al-Qaeda cluster of militant
groups. The invasion and subsequent invasion of Iraq
gave him and other insurgents a stage upon which to
make their mark as mujahideen heroes, akin to the
veterans of the jihad against the Soviets in
Afghanistan in the 1980s. In this video, what is
believed to be Zarqawi's voice is heard only once,
part of an audio tape he released last month
threatening the new U.S.-backed Baghdad government
and reinforcing to Islamic extremist recruits and
financiers that he is the one to follow.
More fascinating than the unprecedented action
footage of the suicide attacks are the long glimpses
into the culture and mindset of the fighters. In the
opening vignette a night vision camera records what's
purported to be a young suicide bomber's living will
and messages to his family as masked men crowd around
him. The dozens of fighters then chant as he walks to
the cabin of the tanker truck rigged with explosives.
The men give the bomber a final hug and farewell. He
turns to the masked figures and waves, as though he's
about to board an ocean liner for a holiday. Behind
the wheel the bomber shows off the wiring to the
explosive device and the trigger, a button between
the seats. The camera records the truck disappearing
into the night and the devastating explosion as it
reaches its target, the American position beneath
Khalidya bridge, west of the restive city of
Fallujah.
The group also repeats its claims of responsibility
for the attacks on Italian soldiers in Nasiriyah in
which 18 were killed, the truck bombing of the U.N.
headquarters in Baghdad and the death of Special
Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello as well as the
bombing of the Mount Lebanon Hotel in March. In the
hotel attack, the cameraman is positioned too close
to the blast and the camera crackles with digital
static as the torrent of yellow and orange flame
rolls toward it.
This video speaks of a danger more organized than the
one viewed through the snippets of the intelligence
and glimmers of insight the public previously seen.
It does not bode well for the immediate future of
Iraq's fledgling government nor the ultimate exit
plans for the 130,000 U.S. troops still here.