Abu Mus'ab al Zarqawi's death a mystery, Imam al-Sadr accuses US forces
Baghdad (AsiaNews) This March 16 Coalition forces will launch Operation "Iron Promise" to drive out and eliminate militant fundamentalist groups and all extreme loyalists of Hussein's former regime, just as was initially planned.
The change in objective was one the first consequences of the bloody attacks against Shiite Muslims the other day. This is what Gen. John Abi Zaid, the Christian-Lebanese American commander of the US troops in Baghdad, has announced.
Meanwhile the plot thickens over the mystery of Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's whereabouts, the presumed top leader and mastermind of the March 2 Shiite massacre (leaving 182 dead and 350 wounded).
A report released March 4 in Fallujia by 12 self-defined "resistance" groups said that the Jordanian terrorist and regional head the Iraqi Al- Qaeda branch organization probably died about a year ago. The joint statement speaks of al-Zarqawi's killing, an event it claims occurred just before the fall of Saddam Hussein last April during a bombing raid of the Ansar al-Islam military base outside Suleymaniah (in northern Iraq).
Their statement, however, didn't mention the exact date in which he supposedly died. They said the letter written by al-Zarqawi (recently released by American intelligence) was "fabricated to justify American theories on civil war." Al-Zarqawi's family members in Jordan told an Arab journalist writing for the Al-Hayat daily newspaper that al-Zarqawi's mother had passed away on Sunday, Feb. 29 yet no one in the family had heard news of the terrorist leader's death.
Yesterday, March 5, during a Friday prayer service homily, the young Shiite Imam preaching at the al-Kufa mosque used the word "game" to describe "the attempt American troops have made to pass the blame for the Baghdad-Karbala attacks onto the Jordanian citizen, Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi."
Imam Muqtada al-Sadr, known for his anti-US sentiments, said "the Americans" were to blame for the recent terrorist strikes, adding in a threatening tone that "we will not standing around any longer with our arms folded." Yet he didn't specify any concrete steps to be taken.
On March 5 Coalition forces rejected a Shiite request to create armed militia units assigned to protect holy sites against terrorist attacks. The veto by Coalition authorities is in accord with what is desired by the PGC, which has been trying for months to disarm unauthorized militant groups found throughout the country. (PB)
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