Abu Musad al Zarqawi, the Al Qaida-affiliated terrorist who U.S. intelligence says conducted the videotaped beheading of American civilian Nick Berg on May 11, also claimed responsibility for a terrorist bombing in Baghdad last week. The attack on a coalition forces headquarters was the work of the Tawhid and Jihad Group, a group that is part of the Zarqawi network, officials said.
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A poster distributed by the U.S. Army shows different images of Abu Musad al Zarqawi, a Jordanian national. AFP/US ARMY-HO
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Zarqawi remains the most dangerous terrorist in Iraq despite a major covert operation to find and kill or capture him and his group.
Intelligence officials consider Zarqawi to be the "field commander" of most of the Islamist terrorists in Iraq.
A communiquŽ posted on a Jihadist web site a day after the bombing stated that a terrorist it identified as Abu Mutab, a Saudi national, "departed in a car loaded with 600 kilograms of TNT for the main headquarters of the occupying forces and their apostate quislings, known as the Republican Palace."
The notice stated that the bombing was "a successful operation, in which the brother was granted the chance to harvest many of the infidels and the apostates."
Zarqawi is also linked to the Islamist terror organization Ansar al Islam, which has stepped up operations in post-war Iraq. Many of the group's members had fled to neighboring Iran and are returning to fight the coalition forces.
Kurdish officials in northern Iraq have stated that Zarqawi was recently in the northern part of the country and had a role in plotting the assassination of Barham Salih, a local governing official.
An Ansar terrorist was caught before the attack could be carried out and the man had stated that he had met Zarqawi in the border town of Halabja.
