Osama bin Laden's deputy has sent a letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the militant leader in Iraq, setting out a blueprint for taking control of the country when US troops leave, according to US intelligence officials.
The plans are set out in a 6,000-word letter dated July 9 this year from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born doctor who is regarded as al-Qaeda's second-in-command.
The existence of the letter to Zarqawi was disclosed by the US last week, but its full contents have only now been made public. The office of the director of national intelligence in Washington, which posted the letter on its Web site, has given no details of how it fell into US hands beyond saying it had been "obtained during counterterrorism operations in Iraq."
"This lengthy document provides a comprehensive view of al-Qaeda's strategy in Iraq and globally," the director's office said.
"The document has not been edited in any way and is released in its entirety in both the Arabic and English translated forms. The US government has the highest confidence in the letter's authenticity."
The letter sets out a four-step plan beginning with the expulsion of US forces from Iraq, followed by the establishment of "an Islamic authority or amirate" covering as much Iraqi territory as possible.
The third stage would "extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq." Finally, would come "the clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity," the letter says.
Although the tone of the letter is polite and respectful, it hints at disagreements on tactics between Zarqawi and the original al-Qaeda leadership, and might be interpreted as a gentle reprimand.
The writer warns Zarqawi that he risks alienating Muslim opinion with gruesome killings of fellow-believers at a time when al-Qaeda in Iraq should be seeking popular support for a new religious state.
"It is imperative that, in addition to force, there also be an appeasement of Muslims and more sharing with them in governance," al-Zawahiri says.
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
RSS