Posted on 02/09/2004 9:45:22 AM PST by dead
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A militant Islamist linked to the al Qaeda network has plotted a series of attacks in Iraq aimed at provoking sectarian violence and a civil war, the U.S.-led occupation authority said Monday.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said U.S. forces had seized a letter outlining the plan which they attribute to Abu Musab Zarqawi, whom Washington suspects in the killing of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan in 2002 and of links to Ansar al-Islam, a militant group operating in Iraq.
"We believe the document is credible and we take the threat seriously," Kimmitt told a news conference in Baghdad.
"There is clearly a plan on the part of outsiders to come into this country and spark civil war, breed sectarian violence and try to expose fissures in the society," he said. "We are persuaded that Zarqawi was the author of the letter."
Last October the United States offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Zarqawi, who was sentenced to death in absentia by a Jordanian court last year for plotting attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets.
He is also suspected of orchestrating the murder of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in the Jordanian capital Amman in October 2002.
Iraq's U.S. occupiers have long said they suspect al Qaeda, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. cities, has played a role in the insurgency against U.S. troops and particularly in attacks on civilian targets in Iraq.
U.S. officials say last month's arrest by U.S. troops in Iraq of Hassan Ghul, who they say reported to the operative responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, shows al Qaeda is trying to get a foothold in the country Washington calls the frontline in its war on terror.
Dan Senor, chief spokesman for Iraq's U.S. governor Paul Bremer, said the 17-page letter proposed attacks on the shrines and leadership of Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority, whom Arab Sunni Muslims and Iraq Kurds fear could dominate a future government.
"The document ... talks about a strategy of provoking violence targeted at the Shia, the Shia leaders in the hope that it would provoke reprisals against other ethnic groups in the country, all focused on provoking ethnic, sectarian warfare," he said.
My favorite trick of theirs is very simple. When quoting a Democrat (or foreign critic of this administration), the verb is "stated." When quoting a Republican (or US military official) the verb is changed to "claimed."
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