Laptop yields al-Qaeda secrets
TIM RIPLEY
The Scotsman Online
COALITION forces in Iraq have seized a laptop computer thought to
belong to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda’s area leader, providing them
with vital intelligence on the insurgency which is continuing to wreak
havoc across the country.
Air Force General Richard Myers, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs
of Staff, who has masterminded the "global war on terror", trumpeted
the intelligence coup in a Pentagon briefing as proof that US troops
were "winning" in Iraq, despite the recent upsurge in attacks that
have killed more than a dozen westerners and scores of Iraqis in the
past two weeks.
US intelligence chiefs were able to download several leads from the
computer’s hard drives, which also contained digital photos of the
Jordanian-born al-Qaeda operative.
The intelligence led to raids being mounted on a number of "safe
houses" and several lieutenants of Zarqawi being captured, along with
bomb-making equipment.
But General Myers admitted the rate of insurgent attacks - currently
at 50 to 60 each day - is now back up to 2004 levels after a drop
following January’s election, which had led some Pentagon chiefs to
suggest that the US could begin withdrawing its troops.
The spate of attacks continued yesterday with the killing of an Iraqi
MP, who was shot dead by suspected insurgents at her home in Baghdad.
Lamia Abed Khadouri, a member of the former interim prime minister
Ayad Allawi’s coalition, is the first politician killed since
elections at the end of January. Police said gunmen knocked at her
door and shot her when she answered.
The past week’s violence and the continued inability of Iraqi
politicians to form a government have seriously dented the impression
of progress that senior US generals and politicians have been trying
to cultivate since January’s elections.
The US had some good news on the political front yesterday, when
Ibrahim Jaafari finally presented a proposal to form a government
including representatives of all Iraq’s main ethnic and religious
groups.
And seeking to offer some positive information on the battle against
the insurgency, General Myers said his troops were "close" to
capturing Zarqawi when they seized his laptop.
Pentagon officials said Zarqawi appeared to have eluded a team of
covert US special-forces troops dispatched to arrest him. When the
al-Qaeda operative and his party approached a checkpoint near Ramadi
he became nervous and sent a car carrying associates ahead of his own
pickup. When US troops stopped the first car, the trailing lorry
turned around and fled.
The capture of Zarqawi’s laptop is not the first time US intelligence
has gained access to the digital secrets of al-Qaeda. In 2003, US and
Pakistani forces captured a laptop computer used by al-Qaeda’s
operational planner, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
It was claimed at the time that the intelligence coup yielded a list
of at least half a dozen hiding places along the Pakistan-Afghan
border used by Osama bin Laden and his supporters.
The US has built up Zarqawi into a major figure in the Iraqi
insurgency and regularly use him to try to link the conflict in Iraq
to their wider, "global war on terror".
But so far they have had little success in their hunt for him.
The deepening security crisis in Baghdad was highlighted this week
when it emerged that the British government has dispatched two RAF
Puma helicopters to fly diplomats around the Iraqi capital, because it
is considered too dangerous to use the roads for fear of insurgent
bombs.
The Puma helicopters are based at Baghdad international airport and
make up to six flights a day into the heart of the city to move
visiting diplomats and military commanders to the heavily fortified
Green Zone.
Insurgents regularly fire on the British helicopters, but to date none
has been hit.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Laptop yields al-Qaeda secrets |
28 Apr 2005 05:32:47 PM |
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Oh goodie, now all they have to do is email him.
LB
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