WASHINGTON - The U.S. military in Iraq is holding a man it says is the first American captured fighting for the Iraqi insurgency. Pentagon officials describe the man, who holds U.S. and Jordanian citizenship, as a senior associate of al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The American was captured in a raid at his home in Iraq in late 2004, Matthew Waxman, the Pentagon's deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, said in an interview Thursday.
Officials declined to provide his name, hometown, or identify him other than to say he functioned as Zarqawi's emissary to insurgent groups in several cities in Iraq.
Zarqawi, who has declared his allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, is the most wanted man in Iraq and is tied to numerous bombings and kidnappings since the U.S.-led invasion removed Saddam Hussein from power two years ago.
Defense officials also say the captured American helped coordinate the movement of insurgents and money into Iraq, and provided support for kidnappings carried out by Zarqawi's operatives, Waxman said.
"Weapons and bomb-making materials were in his residence at the time he was captured," Waxman said. Several other insurgents were captured in the raid, conducted by U.S.-led coalition forces.
After his capture, a panel of three U.S. officers determined he was an enemy combatant and not entitled to prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Convention, Waxman said.
The man is still being held as a security threat but has been visited by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
His capture represents a complicated legal issue for the military, and it is uncertain whether he will be turned over to the Justice Department for investigation or to Iraq's new legal system, which has handled the prosecution of other foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight the U.S.-led occupation and new Iraqi government.
Waxman said officials were considering how to proceed with his case.