Al-Zarqawi video labels any Iraqi govt a 'stooge'
In a rare video posted on the internet today, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and said any government formed in Iraq would be merely a “stooge”.
He mocked the US military in Iraq for what he called suicides, drug-taking and mutinies and warned that “worse” attacks were to come.
The video, released just days after the formation of Iraq’s new government, and just two days after a high-profile audiotape from bin Laden appeared on Arab TV, seemed a deliberate attempt by al-Zarqawi to again claim the spotlight after months in which he took a lower profile.
The video, showing al-Zarqawi in a flat desert landscape that appeared to be somewhere in Iraq’s western Anbar province, also came just one day after a triple bombing at a resort in Egypt that killed at least 24 people, including 21 Egyptians and three foreigners.
Al-Zarqawi did not mention either the bin Laden tape or the Egypt attack in his message, which he said had been taped last Friday.
“Any government which is formed in Iraq now, whether by Shiites or Zionist Kurds, or those who are dubbed Sunnis, would only be a stooge,” he said in the video.
“They are a poisoned dagger in the heart of the Muslim nation.”
Al-Zarqawi also claimed the US military was overwhelmed in Iraq.
“Why don’t you tell people that your soldiers are committing suicide, taking drugs and hallucination pills to make them sleep?” he asked, directing his words to US President George W Bush.
“By God, your dreams will be defeated by our blood and by our bodies. What is coming is even worse,” he said.
The US military in Iraq said it would have no immediate comment.
In Washington, intelligence analysts were examining the new al-Zarqawi video. Two US officials declined to comment immediately.
In the past, al-Zarqawi has made statements only through audiotapes posted on the web, although photographs of him obtained by the US government have been widely circulated.
