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l-Zarqawi group releases propaganda tape

7/1/2005, 6:25 p.m. ET
By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD
The Associated Press

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — A propaganda video purportedly made by al-Qaida-linked terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shows suicide attacks against U.S. soldiers and Iraqi forces and emphasizes that the war being waged by Iraqi insurgents is in retaliation for America's war against Islam.

"The American soldier is a coward and an easy target for the holy fighters," says a speaker said to be al-Zarqawi, on the undated video, posted on militant Web sites Wednesday.

The 46-minute video opens with old footage of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden walking in a mountainous area before moving to clips of suicide operations across Iraq. The authenticity of the voice couldn't be immediately verified, but the recording sounded similar to al-Zarqawi's previous audio tapes.

The voice said the March 2003 war against Iraq "was unjust war by the head of infidelity, America." He called President Bush an "idiot" for announcing an end to major hostilities in May 2003, saying the war "has just started."

"Jihad (holy war) is for God's word to prevail" and that's why "the blood of Muslims in Iraq has mixed with that of their brothers from Muslim countries," the speaker said in reference to other Arabs who have gone to Iraq to join the insurgency.

The video shows clips of suicide attacks on American soldiers and Iraqi forces in Baghdad, Mosul, Talafar, Nasseriya, Youssefiya and several other Iraqi locations. It also shows groups of suicide bombers, laughing with many weapons lying nearby.

The video showed multiple images of burning Humvees and police cars, explosions at the United Nations headquarters in Iraq and buildings on fire with heavy, black smoke. Sounds of gunfire are interspersed with poetry praising heroism and martyrdom.

A group of "martyrs managed to break America's false pride, and this oppressive power, which has persistently sought to undermine this religion, seemed like a toy to a fearful monster," the speaker said.

"America came here just to humiliate Muslims and to obliterate the rituals of this religion."

The tape includes a voice recording of an Iraqi woman who says she lost a son in an attack in Fallujah, in which her house was destroyed and she was arrested. "I wished death for myself rather than the humiliation that I have witnessed," she said.

In October 2004, an Internet statement said al-Zarqawi's group declared allegiance to al-Qaida and "father of all fighters," or Osama bin Laden. Known then as Tawhid and Jihad — Arabic for "monotheism and holy war," the group later changed its name to al-Qaida in Iraq.

Bin Laden endorsed al-Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq in an audiotape in December.

Al-Zarqawi has a $25 million bounty on his head, the same as bin Laden.