How Surveillance and Betrayal Led to a Hunt's End (Zarqawi)

The New York Times ^ | June 9, 2006 | Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti and Richard A. Oppel, Jr.

[StJacques]

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 8 —Muhammad Ismael, a 40-year-old Iraqi taxi driver, was standing outside his home in the tiny village of Hibhib on Wednesday evening when something unusual caught his eye.
Three GMC trucks, each with blackened windows, rumbled past his home and toward the little house in a nearby grove of date palms that for more than three years had stood abandoned.
"It was something very strange," Mr. Ismael said in a telephone interview on Thursday. "That house is always empty."
Meanwhile, in Baghdad, American military commanders believed that they had at last cornered their most coveted prey: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist whose murderous onslaught against Iraqi civilians and American troops had made him the most wanted man in all Iraq.
For the first time, the Americans believed, they had a source deep inside his terrorist group. Mr. Zarqawi, the source told them, was in the little house in the palm grove.

American jets were in the sky above. . . .

[StJacques]

". . . Knowing that someone ratted the Zarkman out, probably is weighing heavily on their minds! . . ."

Now Achmed; tell us again. Just how was it that your brother was released from jail?

[definitelynotaliberal]

"Why open our mouths and tell them to start looking?"

I can answer that one. We are talking about savage beasts. There's no such thing as starting to look. The philosophy is kill-first-praise-allah-later. Let them go to town killing each other. I'm enjoying this show.

[Dog]

Who knew Zarqawi favored GMC trucks...I'm a Jeep man myself.

[don-o]

Had not seen that one. Wonder if the correction for the paper of record is up yet?

[TET1968]

Times has it wrong.
According to today's press conference, no children, and I believe three woman and three men.

[lstanle]

"Got a fact wrong, though. He was alive when the troops / police found him"

Also, later info says there was no child killed. Three men and three women, the last I heard.

[ccmay]

Wouldn't "no comment" be a better answer?

Maybe, maybe not. I think it's at least as likely that we don't have any inside dope at all, and that by "leaking" this information we are attempting to spark a self-destructive mole hunt in what's left of Z-man's organization.

-ccm

[StJacques]

"Also, it included a myth which has since been debunked. There was no child in the dwelling."

If any of you see an article headlined "No Child in Dwelling with Zarqawi when Bombed" or something similar, ping me!

This is information the MSM will want to keep buried.

[paul51]

I can imagine a meeting of the next "top 10" in the network. They are all sitting around a table looking at each other and trying to figure out which one will take over leadership of the group.

Also wondering if a 500 lb bomb is going to come flying through the window

[coldoc]

I forsee another drop in GM sales! I wonder if the Zarkman had On-Star??

[ccmay]

Gotta wonder if the NYT saying "Muhammad Ismael, a 40-year-old Iraqi taxi driver, was standing outside his home in the tiny village of Hibhib" will be enough to get Mr. Ismael killed by people who don't think he should be noticing things like that and telling it to the American press.

Quite possibly, this "Muhammad" fellow is an allied operative, brought along for the purpose of planting the version of the story that we want published.

-ccm

[Don Carlos]

Mr. Zarqawi this, Mr. Zarqawi that! What a bunch of post-mortem arse kissers!

Too bad they will never treat President Bush with anything approaching the same respect. A pox on all of them!

[arthurus]

I wonder if we actually had info from an insider. If we did not it would be right to say that we did to sow a little mistrust there and maybe get the bad guys to do some of our work by offing each other.

[arthurus]

know he was in a fix before he got it.

Apparently he had been in that fix before and slid out of it.

[bboop]

Yes, he was still alive. AND there was no infant -- they took that back today.

[arthurus]

Wouldn't "no comment" be a better answer?

Not for sowing a little mistrust. "Was it you Moe?" BANG!

[Bender2]

Re NYT: According to a Pentagon official, the Americans finally got one. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the raid are classified, said that an Iraqi informant inside Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia provided the critical piece of intelligence about Mr. Rahman's meeting with Mr. Zarqawi. The source's identity was not clear — nor was it clear how that source was able to pinpoint Mr. Zarqawi's location without getting killed himself.

"We have a guy on the inside who led us directly to Zarqawi," the official said.

My first thought was here goes the NYT again leaking classified material and getting away with it again...

Then I thought...

Even if this is NYT's horsehockey to dim credit to our Special Forces, it will make everyone in Al Qaeda wonder if the raghead next to them is on the level or not...

But my rathers would be the New York Times editors/reporters spending severl months with their Al Qaeda buds down in Gitmo... All in the same cage!

[arthurus]

Taliban prefers Toyotas.

[hardworking]

You never know in the intelligence game

Maybe they want these thugs to become paranoid and start looking at each other askance. Nothing like suspicion of each other to help undermine a group.

[hardworking]

Just exactly who was it?? "Hey, did anyone notice Abdul is never around when the infidels are attacking the Z-Man??" "Have you noticed how Abu seems to be quite a bit richer lately?"" etc...

Yeah, it's the guy who always seems to be out picking up the pizza order...