On Wednesday, I posted a
diary that raised questions about Negroponte (the Director of National Intelligence) posting a recent letter by Zawahiri to Zarqawi on the DNI website in
Arabic and
English in which Zawahiri references the U.S. "cutting and running" in Vietnam, predicting that the same will soon occur in Iraq. Other references in the letter read like a Bush press release
The MSM ran to lap up this latest batch of slop in the trough. The Washington Post and The NY Times ran stories, but failed to post the actual letters...or to even question the authenticity or timing of the release.
I am not an Arabic linguist, but as a political scientist, I questioned the authenticity of the letter, as did many Kossacks, so I posted information about it over at the Iraq Blog Count website to seek Iraqi opinions and e-mailed Professor Juan Cole at the University of Michigan and asked for his impressions of the letter. Their verdicts - FAKE! Their rationales are printed below
First, the reaction of an Iraqi blogger - and may I say, our Kossack interaction with the Iraqi bloggers over at
Iraq Blog Count has been way cool since we began this
collaborative effort:
Some writers seem to be wondering about the Zawahiri letter to Zarqawi. Is it a fake or not. Some are even suggesting Zarqawi is no more then an arrangement of letters himself. And some people seem very very keen to vet opinion about it.
Who knows, what I do know is this: constructing identity is a collaborative affair. Does Osama Bin Laden care that a clandestine international terrorist ring is attributed to him or that he is accused of what might be other independent bombings? No, he doesn't seem to mind at all. In fact, just like the IRA and it's variant branches he colludes with his "opponents" by accepting "the credit" for missions accomplished. Do Pentagon senior officials mind that Osama might be dead already? No, they seem happy to claim he is still large as life and threatening as ever. Similarly, do Pentagon senior officials mind if rumours spread that Zarqawi is dead? Apparently not, it means their president can pretend to have knocked out a "key card". And does Zarqawi mind if people think he is dead? It appears he doesn't, perhaps it gives him cover.
And so while these two apparently antagonistic forces collaborate by agreeing to oust each other, ordinary people suffer. Very ordinary people who cannot be bothered playing the pomp and ceremony game or donning an outfit or taking "a side" or even a stand.
Very ordinary people who notice very odd things. Like how this seems to be at least the second "resistance" letter that has mysteriously made it's way into Pentagon hands. Like the one last year that the cpa published. The one from Zarqawi himself, apparently. And how Jim Lobe's article about last year's letter is disguised as a go at "the neocons" but all the same proposes the letter is authentic and that it's all about the Sunnis getting the Shia's. Teeheehee. I don't think anybody buys that line anymore...
Or other things, like how the letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi doesn't seem to be to Zarqawi at all but to someone else who is being asked to send Zarqawi greetings.
Or how, almost halfway through on page 6 the author seems to be proposing a democratic solution:
"...We don't want to repeat the mistake of the Taliban, who restricted participation in governance to the students and the people of Qandahar alone. They did not have any representation for the Afghan people in their ruling regime, so the result was that the Afghan people disengaged themselves from them. Even devout ones took the stance of the spectator and, when the invasion came, the amirate collapsed in days, because the people were either passive or hostile..."
My goodness, doesn't that sound like disengaged populations all over the world.
Yeah, I think it's a big fat ill-spun fake. There ya go, that's what I think of the handiwork. Still it is a very well written letter. Very florid style. I rather like it, as a fiction piece.
Juan Cole's assessment was also posted today on his awesome blog, Informed Comment today.
Zawahiri Letter to Zarqawi: A Shiite Forgery?
The Arabic text of the recently released letter alleged to be by Zawahiri (al-Qaeda's number two man) to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq raises questions for me as to its authenticity.
The very first element of the letter is the blessing on the Prophet. It says:
al-salah wa al-salam `ala rasuli'llahi wa a-lihi wa suhubihi . . .
(peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of God and his family and his companions . . .)
the phrase "salla Allahu `alayhi wa alihi wa sallam" (the blessings and peace of God be upon him and his family) is a Shiite form of the salutation, because of the emphasis of the Shiites on the House or descendants of the Prophet. Because of the cultural influence of Shiism in South Asia, one does find that form of the salutation in Pakistan and India among Sunni Muslims.
But before I went to Pakistan I had never, ever heard a Sunni Muslim add "wa alihi" (and his family) to the salutation. I associated it strongly with Iran and Shiism, and was taken aback to hear Sunnis say it on Pakistani television. Certainly, I never heard that form of it all the time I lived in Egypt.
I just put "salla Allahu `alayhi wa alihi wa sallam" into google in English transliteration and all the sites that came up on the first page were either Shiite or Pakistani Sunni (Chishti, Barelvi, etc.) I tried adding Misr (Egypt) to the phrase and got a Shiite attack on the medieval Sunni hardline thinker, Ibn Taymiya. I tried adding Qaida and got a Shiite attack on Sunni extremism.
I do not believe that an Egyptian like al-Zawahiri would use this phraseology at all. But he certainly would not use it to open a letter to a Salafi. Sunni hardliners deeply object to what they see as Shiite idolatry of the imams or descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, for whom they made shrines such as Ali's at Najaf and Husayn's at Karbala. In fact, hard line Wahhabis from Saudi Arabia attacked and sacked Karbala in 1803.
Adding to the salutation "the peace and blessings of God be upon him [Muhammad]" the phrase "and his family" would be an insult to Zarqawi and to the hardline Sunnis in Iraq.
Later he refers to Husain, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, as al-Imam al-sibt, "the Imam, the grandson". I do not believe that a hard line Sunni such as Zawahiri would call Husain an Imam. That is Shiite terminology.
The letter then says how much Zawahiri misses meeting with Zarqawi. Zarqawi was not part of al-Qaeda when he was in Afghanistan. He had a rivalry with it. And when he went back to Jordan he did not allow the Jordanian and German chapters of his Tawhid wa Jihad group to send money to Bin Laden. If Zawahiri was going to bring up old times, he would have had to find a way to get past this troubled history, not just pretend that the two used to pal around.
My gut tells me that the letter is a forgery. Most likely it is a black psy-ops operation of the US. But it could also come from Iran, since the mistakes are those a Shiite might make when pretending to be a Sunni. Or it could come from an Iraqi Shiite group attempting to manipulate the United States. Hmmm.
The authenticity of the letter has also been questioned by al-Qaeda in Iraq.
For thos who haven't seen the 11 page "letter," here are some of the more "curious" points that raised my suspicion:
Let's begin with the "Press release" that accompanied the posting of the letter by the DNI:
Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi
October 11, 2005
ODNI News Release No. 2-05
Today the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a letter between two senior al Qa'ida leaders, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, that was obtained during counterterrorism operations in Iraq. This lengthy document provides a comprehensive view of al Qa'ida's strategy in Iraq and globally.
The letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi is dated July 9, 2005. The contents were released only after assurances that no ongoing intelligence or military operations would be affected by making this document public.
The document has not been edited in any way and is released in its entirety in both the Arabic and English translated forms. The United States Government has the highest confidence in the letter's authenticity.
Al-Zawahiri's letter offers a strategic vision for al Qa'ida's direction for Iraq and beyond, and portrays
al Qa'ida's senior leadership's isolation and dependence.
Among the letter's highlights are discussions indicating:
The centrality of the war in Iraq for the global jihad.
From al Qa'ida's point of view, the war does not end with an American departure.
An acknowledgment of the appeal of democracy to the Iraqis.
The strategic vision of inevitable conflict, with a tacit recognition of current political dynamics in Iraq; with a call by al-Zawahiri for political action equal to military action.
The need to maintain popular support at least until jihadist rule has been established.
Admission that more than half the struggle is taking place "in the battlefield of the media."
Looking to the English translation of the letter, I found the following items to be peculiar:
...As for the battles that are going on in the far-flung regions of the Islamic world, such as Chechnya, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Bosnia, they are just the groundwork and the vanguard for the major battles which have begun in the heart of the Islamic world...
...Jihad in Iraq requires several incremental goals:
The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq.
The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate- over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq, i.e., in Sunni areas, is in order to fill the void stemming from the departure of the Americans, immediately upon their exit and before un-Islamic forces attempt to fill this void, whether those whom the Americans will leave behind them, or those among the un-Islamic forces who will try to jump at taking power. There is no doubt that this amirate will enter into a fierce struggle with the foreign infidel forces, and those supporting them among the local forces, to put it in a state of constant preoccupation with defending itself, to make it impossible for it to establish a stable state which could proclaim a caliphate, and to keep the Jihadist groups in a constant state of war, until these forces find a chance to annihilate them.
The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq.
The fourth stage: It may coincide with what came before: the clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity....
...The Muslim masses-for many reasons, and this is not the place to discuss it-do not rally except against an outside occupying enemy, especially if the enemy is firstly Jewish, and secondly American. This, in my limited opinion, is the reason for the popular support that the mujahedeen enjoy in Iraq, by the grace of God...
...This, in my limited opinion, is the reason for the popular support that the mujahedeen enjoy in Iraq, by the grace of God...
...I assert here that any rational person understands with ease that the Shia cooperated with the Americans in the invasion of Afghanistan, Rafsanjani himself confessed to it, and they cooperated with them in the overthrow of Saddam and the occupation of Iraq in exchange for the Shia's assumption of power and their turning a blind eye to the American military presence in Iraq. This is clear to everybody who has two eyes....
...Their (the Shia's) prior history in cooperating with the enemies of Islam is consistent with their current reality of connivance with the Crusaders...
...if the attacks on Shia leaders were necessary to put a stop to their plans, then why were there attacks on ordinary Shia? Won't this lead to reinforcing false ideas in their minds, even as it is incumbent on us to preach the call of Islam to them and explain and communicate to guide them to the truth? And can the mujahedeen kill all of the Shia in Iraq? Has any Islamic state in history ever tried that? And why kill ordinary Shia considering that they are forgiven because of their ignorance? And what loss will befall us if we did not attack the Shia? And do the brothers forget that we have more than one hundred prisoners - many of whom are from the leadership who are wanted in their countries - in the custody of the Iranians? And even if we attack the Shia out of necessity, then why do you announce this matter and make it public, which compels the Iranians to take counter measures? And do the brothers forget that both we and the Iranians need to refrain from harming each other at this time in which the Americans are targeting us?...
...The brothers informed me that you suggested to them sending some assistance. Our situation since Abu al-Faraj is good by the grace of God, but many of the lines have been cut off. Because of this, we need a payment while new lines are being opened. So, if you're capable of sending a payment of approximately one hundred thousand, we'll be very grateful to you...