Islamist Web Site Indicates Top Insurgent Is Badly Wounded

05/24/2005

By JOHN F. BURNS and TERENCE NEILAN
NY Times
Published: May 24, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 24 - An Internet site used by the group Al Qaeda in Iraq said today that its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been wounded, and it asked for Muslims to pray for his recovery.

“Let everybody know that the injury of our leader is an honor, and causes us to surround our enemy tighter,” the statement said, in a translation by the Search for International Terrorist Entities Institute in Washington, which monitors Islamic Web sites.

The wording of the six-paragraph statement, issued by the “information section” of the group, Al Qaeda Organization in the Land of Two Rivers, sounded as if Mr. Zarqawi has been badly hurt, and that his supporters were probably being prepared for his death. But there was no way to assess its veracity or determine whether it might even be a ploy to dilute the pursuit of Mr. Zarqawi, the American military’s “most wanted man” in Iraq with a $25 million bounty on his head.

In Baghdad, a United States military spokesman, Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, said he could not judge the report’s credibility. “We have no information on whether he’s wounded or what the state of his health is,” he told Reuters. “He’s still our number one target to be captured or killed and until that happens, the hunt is still on.”

The Islamist Web site’s posting today follows an announcement by the United States military command in Iraq on May 6 that Mr. Zarqawi, who is in his late 30’s, narrowly escaped capture on Feb. 20 between the towns of Hit and Haditha, in the Euphrates Corridor.

Three days later, the military announced a major offensive by a 1,000-marine battle group in the stretch of the Euphrates running westward from Haiditha to the border with Syria at Al Qaim.

The military said at the time that the main targets were members of Zarqawi’s terror troops, and it brought in air power to bomb targets. The offensive ended last week with the military saying that about 125 terrorists had been killed and that the rest had either fled to Syria or returned to the Iraqi interior.

Since then, there have been a number of reports of hospital visits by Mr. Zarqawi in Ramadi, Haditha and Baghdad.

The United States Command has been saying for several weeks that its forces have been seriously “degrading” terror groups in the so-called Sunni Triangle and that 20 of Mr. Zarqawi’s top lieutenants had been killed or captured.

At the time of Mr. Zarqawi’s near capture, a pickup truck in which the terrorist leader was a passenger did a U-turn at a security checkpoint. The driver, who was taken prisoner, said Mr. Zarqawi jumped out of the truck as it went by an overpass, leaving behind his laptop computer.

Since then there have been a number of reports Mr. Zarqawi had sought medical treatment in hospitals in Ramadi, Haditha and Baghdad.

Mr. Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born militant who was named by Osama bin Laden earlier this year as Al Qaeda’s chief in Iraq, is thought to have been behind many of the beheadings of foreign hostages and car bombings that have taken hundreds of Iraqi lives.

In an audiotape posted on May 18 on an Islamist Web site, a speaker purporting to be Mr. Zarqawi defended such attacks as necessary to the success of his jihad, or holy war, against the American forces and their allies.

“God ordered us to attack the infidels by all means,” he said, in a translation provided by The Associated Press, “even if armed infidels and unintended victims - women and children - are killed together.”

“The priority is for jihad, so anything that slows down jihad should be overcome,” he added.

In a Reuters translation, Mr. Zarqawi said, “Protecting religion is more important than protecting lives, honor or wealth.”

“The killing of infidels by any method including martyrdom operations has been sanctified by many scholars, even if it means killing innocent Muslims,” he said, adding unapologetically that Muslims killed unintentionally in such attacks should be considered “martyrs who died for Islam.”

While much about Mr. Zarqawi’s operations remain unknown, some senior intelligence officials in Europe and the Middle East, as well as some terror experts, have argued that the United States has purposely overstated Mr. Zarqawi’s importance, turning him into an almost mythic figure. This portrayal may have enhanced his aura with young recruits, helping his organization entice new jihadists in Europe and the Middle East to join his group’s ranks, they say.