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Newsday Exclusive: Where is al-Zarqawi?

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI | STAFF WRITER

December 21, 2004

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq - Where is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi?

That question has confounded the U.S. military for more than a year. U.S. and Iraqi officials insisted for months that the most wanted man in Iraq was hiding in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah. But after recapturing the city last month, U.S. forces did not find al-Zarqawi there.

The Jordanian-born militant has achieved mythic status as a master of disguise and escape. Although al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for scores of kidnappings, suicide bombings and beheadings of foreigners, many Iraqis believe that al-Zarqawi does not even exist. They say he was invented by the United States to justify its raids and bombing campaigns.

Al-Zarqawi's influence on the Iraqi insurgency is more complicated than both the U.S. military and al-Zarqawi make it out to be, according to Kurdish security officials. They say al-Zarqawi is likely moving around central and northern Iraq alone, finding shelter in Sunni Muslim areas dominated by former members of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime.

"He can move around any number of Iraqi areas. He can change his appearance, he can change his papers," said Dana Ahmad Majid, head of security for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two parties that control the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. "He could be moving around alone without any problem. Al-Zarqawi is a single man, and it's always extremely difficult to capture a single person."

Asked if he thought al-Zarqawi escaped during last month's U.S. assault on Fallujah, Majid smiled, took a drag on his cigarette and said, "Who knows that al-Zarqawi was ever in Fallujah?"

In interviews over the past week, Majid and other security officials painted a picture of how the insurgency is operating in northern Iraq, especially in the city of Mosul and surrounding areas that have long been Baathist strongholds. The assessments of these officials -- based on interrogation of dozens of insurgents captured over the past year -- contradict some of the U.S. military's repeated assertions about al-Zarqawi's role in the insurgency.

Kurdish officials acknowledged that the most vexing challenge in combatting the insurgency is that guerrillas have infiltrated nearly all branches of the Iraqi government. "The terrorists' point of strength is information," said Sadi Ahmed Pire, who is in charge of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's security operations in Mosul. "They have exact information. They have people in every government office and department: police, national guard, the health and education ministries, the municipalities. Some cooperate willingly, while others are forced."

Pire said he has intelligence that al-Zarqawi has spent time in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and has also found refuge in a desert area called Qaim, near Iraq's border with Jordan and Syria.

Why doesn't Pire share such information on al-Zarqawi's whereabouts with the U.S. military, so it can carry out raids? "If we or the Americans get ready to launch an operation, the terrorists will know about it within an hour," Pire said.

One spectacular example of penetration occurred just last month. During a series of coordinated attacks by insurgents aimed at taking over the Iraqi government infrastructure in Mosul, most Iraqi police units in the city assisted the guerrillas. "Many police commanders and the director of police in Mosul were cooperating with the terrorists," Pire said. "In one day, Nov. 9, they gave them control of two-thirds of the police stations in the city."

Among the other intelligence gleaned by Kurdish officials from their interrogations of prisoners, including several who have met with al-Zarqawi:

Islamic militant groups operate in small cells of three or four people, each headed by an "emir," or prince, who is empowered to make decisions about when and where to launch attacks and suicide bombings. "The general planning might be done by al-Zarqawi, and perhaps he might also secure some material or money," Majid said. "But the specific acts are being carried out by small cells, and al-Zarqawi might not even know about them until he hears it on the news."

It is a mistake to paint al-Zarqawi as the ultimate leader of the Iraqi insurgency because there are so many small groups of militants that might agree with al-Zarqawi ideologically but that may not necessarily take orders from him. "There are localized leaders who can make day-to-day decisions about what attacks to carry out," Majid said. "But who is the supreme leader? We don't know."

Al-Zarqawi is working closely with a Kurdish Islamist group, Ansar al-Islam ("Partisans of Islam"), which once had about 700 members and has provided scores of recruits for suicide bombings since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Ansar moved many of its operations to Mosul after it was driven out of a remote, mountainous part of northern Iraq by U.S. bombardment during the war. The group also has a presence in Baghdad, Fallujah, Ramadi and Baqubah -- cities where the insurgency has been entrenched.

Most of Ansar's leaders have been killed or captured. But the group has become more difficult to track because it has splintered into small cells and some of its members have been absorbed into another group led by al-Zarqawi: Tawhid wa Jihad ("Unity and Holy War").

Most of the communication between various militant groups, including al-Zarqawi and his supporters, is done through Internet cafes. "Telephone communications in Iraq are difficult," Majid said, "but the Internet is everywhere and it is difficult to track."

Insurgents are using proceeds from drug trafficking, especially hashish smuggled from Afghanistan, to finance some of their attacks. Some suicide bombers also are being given sedatives and other drugs before carrying out their attacks. As an example, Majid cited a 20-year-old Kurd who was killed in September as he tried to ram a car packed with explosives into a hotel in the city of Sulaimaniyah. "When we examined his body, we found a small amount of drugs in his system," Majid said.

Baathist and Islamic groups have liaison officers in major cities such as Mosul to coordinate activities. And both factions are paying unemployed young men to carry out attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces. "They pay from $50 to thousands of dollars, depending on the tasks," Pire said. "There's 75 percent unemployment in Mosul. Maybe some of these young people are not terrorists, but they have to make some money."

One of the major questions facing the U.S. military is the extent of foreign involvement in the insurgency. Kurdish officials say the majority of insurgents they have arrested were Iraqi, but there were also some Syrians, Jordanians and Palestinians. In January, Majid's forces captured Hassan Ghul, a Pakistani believed to be a mid-level operative in al-Qaida. Ghul was carrying a CD with a 17-page letter purportedly written by al-Zarqawi to Osama bin Laden. The letter appeals to bin Laden for help in setting off a sectarian war through a campaign of bombings against the Shia Muslim majority in Iraq.

Before invading Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration argued that al-Zarqawi was a top lieutenant of bin Laden. U.S. officials said al-Zarqawi had taken refuge in Baghdad and was a major link between Hussein's regime and bin Laden's al-Qaida network. But that assertion has never been proven, and there are doubts about al-Zarqawi's relationships with both bin Laden and Hussein's government, as some Bush administration officials have acknowledged in recent months. In July, U.S. officials raised the reward for information leading to al-Zarqawi's arrest or killing to $25 million -- equal to the bounty on bin Laden's head.

The Bush administration has consistently labeled al-Zarqawi as the main force behind the Iraqi insurgency. To some Iraqis, the U.S. focus on al-Zarqawi is part of a political strategy to portray the insurgency as driven by Islamic militants and foreigners.

Kurdish officials say the insurgency found renewed strength in northern Iraq in May, after the Baath Party held a meeting in the Syrian town of Hasaka.

The party reorganized itself, expelling more than half the membership, or anyone who had dealings with the United States, the Iraqi government or even humanitarian aid groups. The new Baath leaders are Mohammad Younis al-Ahmad and Ibrahim Sabawi, Hussein's half-brother and the former head of Iraq's general security directorate.

The new leadership found support in Mosul, which had been an important base for Hussein's military and security apparatus, providing more than a third of all Iraqi officers. "The insurgents are using the infrastructure of the old Iraqi army," Pire said. "In Mosul alone, there were more generals than in all of America."

Majid noted that the focus on al-Zarqawi takes some of the pressure off lesser-known Baathist leaders. "These people like to remain anonymous," Majid said. "If everyone is looking for al-Zarqawi, they have more room to operate."