Word: zarqawi
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...most recent video releases by Osama bin Laden and Musab al-Zarqawi - and the reactions to them - reveal that the high-profile jihadist carpetbaggers may be finding it harder to maintain a following precisely in those places where local Islamist insurgencies should provide the most fertile ground. A videotape purporting to show Zarqawi musing on the state of the Iraqi insurgency surfaced on a jihadist web site on Tuesday, a day after a terror attack on the Egyptian resort town of Dahab killed at least 23 people and two days after the release of an Osama bin Laden audiotape urging...
...Zarqawi Demoted...
...Zarqawi tape is an unremarkable restatement of enthusiasm for jihad in Iraq; its prime purpose seems to be to reestablish his media presence. And if recent reports that Zarqawi's status has been downsized even by his own coalition of insurgent groups are to be believed, it's not hard to see why the Jordanian fugitive synonymous with mass-casualty bombings of Iraqi Shi'ites and videotaped beheadings of kidnapped Westerners would be looking for some attention...
...controlled by forces friendly to the new Iraqi government, that grip is shaky in Sunni areas. Even in the relatively subdued Shi'ite south, coalition forces and their Iraqi recruits face daily harassment from militants loyal to rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. And the military believes that the al-Zarqawi-led insurgency is becoming more ruthless and resilient. "If we don't kill or capture them," says a U.S. general in Iraq, "they move on to fight somewhere else...
...presence is impossible until a credible Iraqi government proves it can defend itself against an insurgency that is likely to persist for years. The range of plausible scenarios if the U.S. were to pull out includes an Islamic state that provides sanctuary to terrorists like al-Zarqawi and a civil war that could draw in neighboring countries like Syria and Iran. "We cannot walk away from this one," says retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, a former head of U.S. forces in the Middle East and a leading critic of the Administration's handling of Iraq. "It would...