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E-mail Author Send to a Friend Version October 21, 2005, 9:28 a.m. It’s Real The arguments over that Zawahiri letter suggests we don’t know our enemy. By Rita Katz On October 8, 2005, the U.S. government unsealed a letter allegedly written by Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden’s deputy, to “the Emir (prince) of al-Qaeda in Iraq,” Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The letter’s authenticity was largely questioned; as reported by Reuters on October 14: “U.S. intelligence officials who released a letter purporting to be from an al Qaeda leader to Iraq insurgency leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi this week said on...

Doubts are mounting here about the authenticity of a letter from Al Qaeda's deputy chief to the terror organization's field commander in Iraq. The letter was made public October 11 by President Bush's new director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, in a press release that said, "The United States Government has the highest confidence in the letter's authenticity." If the letter were to be proven a forgery, it would be a blow to the credibility of an office that was created last year at the urging of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States following the intelligence...

Al Qaeda Dupes Liberal Left Into Fighting Jihad By Frank Salvato October 14, 2005 The recently released letter from Ayman al Zawahiri to Abu Musab al Zarqawi is now being painted as a forgery by al Qaeda in Iraq, Zarqawi's faction of the radical Islamist terror movement. This is understandable as it does expose many of their goals and strategies in their quest for global domination. But perhaps the most immediate reason to discredit the intercepted correspondence is that it spells out in the most simplistic of terms that they have been using the anti-war movement here in the United...

A posting on an Islamic Web site Thursday accused the United States of fabricating a letter in which al-Qaida's No. 2 leader asked for money and laid out the terrorist group's plans for expanding the insurgency in the Middle East. "We in al-Qaida declare that there is no truth to these claims, and they are baseless, except in the imagination of the politicians of the Black (White) House," according to the statement on a Web site known as a clearing house for al-Qaida material. The statement was signed Abu Maysara, who claims to be spokesman for al-Qaida in Iraq. It...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States has obtained a letter from one terrorist leader to another that discusses plans to force a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, create an Islamic state there and then spread their fight into neighboring countries, Pentagon officials said. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman would only broadly characterize the intercepted letter, which he said was written by Osama bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahri to the leader of al-Quaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Whitman would not say where, when or how it was obtained, or who intercepted it, but he said the Pentagon is confident it is authentic.

The U.S. has obtained a 13-page letter written by Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, to Abu Musab al Zarqawi in Iraq, outlining with what one senior official calls "chilling clarity" al Qaeda's stretagy for Iraq and beyond, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. The letter, which was written shortly after the London bombings in July, calls Iraq "the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era." Zarqawi is America's most-wanted insurgent in Iraq. Zawahiri, the man most intelligence analysts believe is the brains behind bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist organization, is considered...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 - A strategy document outlining proposals for eliminating the threat from Al Qaeda, given to Condoleezza Rice as she assumed the post of national security adviser in January 2001, warned that the terror network had cells in the United States and 40 other countries and sought unconventional weapons, according to a declassified version of the document. The 13-page proposal presented to Dr. Rice by her top counterterrorism adviser, Richard A. Clarke, laid out ways to step up the fight against Al Qaeda, focusing on Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan. The ideas included giving "massive support" to...

<p>Al-Qaida attacks around the world have increased dramatically over the past few months. Now NBC News has obtained new evidence of what al-Qaida is thinking, in the form of what appears to be a planning memo written by an al-Qaida militant that specifies which Americans and others to target in Iraq and worldwide.</p>

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 11 — American forces arriving in Iraq are being singled out for kidnapping by insurgents, according to senior military officers. The insurgents, they say, may make a symbolic spectacle of abducted soldiers or use captives to negotiate the release of Iraqi prisoners. Military commanders are also concerned about a possible new terrorist tactic: posing as police officers. Two American civilians and their translator were killed Tuesday, and initial reports indicated that their attackers were dressed in Iraqi police uniforms. The warning on kidnapping is being given to Marine Corps and Army ground forces rotating into Iraq. The...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States has evidence that a Jordanian-born militant was behind this week's devastating suicide bombings in Iraq, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East said Wednesday. The statement by Gen. John Abizaid is the most direct assertion yet by a U.S. official that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is carrying through on a terrorist campaign inside Iraq, as described in a letter purportedly written by al-Zarqawi and intercepted recently by U.S. intelligence. The letter outlined plans to attack Shiite religious sites to foment a civil war. The Bush administration says al-Zarqawi has links to Osama bin Laden,...

US troops starting to repel shadowy forces By Patrick Bishop in Falluja (Filed: 28/02/2004) In their frustrating war with Iraqi enemies of the occupation, coalition troops are enjoying a run of success, killing a notorious bomb-maker and capturing a group suspected of two bloody suicide bombings. At the same time, the shadowy forces battling the occupiers appear to have admitted they are now under severe pressure from the Americans and local security forces. The latest coalition success is the death of Abu Mohammed Hamza, a bomb-making expert and lieutenant of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whom America has identified as its No...

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/768rwsbj.asp Saddam's Ambassador to al Qaeda From the March 1, 2004 issue: An Iraqi prisoner details Saddam's links to Osama bin Laden's terror network. by Jonathan Schanzer 03/01/2004, Volume 009, Issue 24 A RECENTLY INTERCEPTED MESSAGE from Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi asking the al Qaeda leadership for reinforcements reignited the debate over al Qaeda ties with Saddam Hussein's fallen Baath regime. William Safire of the New York Times called the message a "smoking gun," while the University of Michigan's Juan Cole says that Safire "offers not even one document to prove" the Saddam-al Qaeda nexus. What you are...

Saddam's Ambassador to al-QaedaBy Jonathan SchanzerWeekly Standard | February 23, 2004 A RECENTLY INTERCEPTED MESSAGE from Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi asking the al Qaeda leadership for reinforcements reignited the debate over al-Qaeda ties with Saddam Hussein's fallen Baath regime. William Safire of the New York Times called the message a "smoking gun," while the University of Michigan's Juan Cole says that Safire "offers not even one document to prove" the Saddam/al-Qaeda nexus. What you are about to read bears directly on that debate. It is based on a recent interview with Abdul Rahman al-Shamari, who served in...

An Iraqi prisoner details Saddam's links to Osama bin Laden's terror network. A RECENTLY INTERCEPTED MESSAGE from Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi asking the al Qaeda leadership for reinforcements reignited the debate over al Qaeda ties with Saddam Hussein's fallen Baath regime. William Safire of the New York Times called the message a "smoking gun," while the University of Michigan's Juan Cole says that Safire "offers not even one document to prove" the Saddam-al Qaeda nexus. What you are about to read bears directly on that debate. It is based on a recent interview with Abdul Rahman al-Shamari, who...

Today marks the Wisconsin primary, the coronation of John Kerry as the Democratic presidential nominee, and the completion of the destruction of the dreams of America's Deanie Babies. As of tomorrow Howard Dean has

<p>February 17, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - Al Qaeda's chief terrorist in Iraq is trying to bring in hundreds of hardened Islamic fighters from Chechnya to help launch his offensive against U.S. forces, The Post has learned. Documents discovered on a computer disk of a captured high-level al Qaeda courier revealed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the military commander of Ansar al-Islam, has proposed transferring up to 2,000 jihadi veterans from Chechnya to Iraq over the next few months, U.S. officials said.</p>

IF conclusive proof was needed that it is Islamic fundamentalists, and not the countries they despise, who are the enemies of ordinary Muslims, that proof has been provided by the events of the past fortnight in Iraq. In the worst violence since the end of combat operations last May, suicide bombers have switched their focus away from coalition soldiers and on to ordinary Iraqis - ordinary, but not randomly chosen. Two attacks last week, claiming almost 100 lives, targeted Iraqis queuing to apply for jobs as soldiers and policemen. These suicide attacks were followed at the weekend by assaults on...

"By God, this is suffocation!" That's the quotation of the week -- if not the new year. This exclamation, first reported in The New York Times, expresses the raw frustration of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born terror-master believed to be operating in Iraq and long thought to have been a Saddam Hussein-harbored link to Al Qaeda. His frustration is the result of American success in Iraq. In a document intercepted last month by U.S. officials, the man believed to be Zarqawi bemoans U.S. resolve -- America "has no intention of leaving, no matter how many wounded nor how bloody it...

An NRO Primary Document EDITOR'S NOTE: Earlier this week, Coalition officials discovered a letter believed to have been written by terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to al Qaeda operatives (see Michael Ledeen here). Below is the text of the letter, as translated and distributed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. 1. The foreign Mujahidin: Their numbers continue to be small, compared to the large nature of the expected battle. We know that there are enough good groups and jihad is continuing, despite the negative rumors. What is preventing us from making a general call to arms is the fact that the country...

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERSFROM: DANIEL McKIVERGANSUBJECT: Zarqawi Letter to Senior al Qaeda LeadershipWe have obtained a copy of the following letter purportedly written to senior al Qaeda leaders from Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist believed to be operating in Iraq. The existence of this letter, captured in a raid on a safe house in Baghdad on January 23, 2004, was first reported in the New York Times on February 10. TEXT FROM ABU MUS'AB AL-ZARQAWI LETTER1. THE FOREIGN MUJAHIDIN:THEIR NUMBERS CONTINUE TO BE SMALL, COMPARED TO THE LARGE NATURE OF THE EXPECTED BATTLE. WE KNOW THAT THERE ARE ENOUGH...