February
6, 2003 10:30 a.m. Who
is Zarqawi?
A
key proof of the Axis of Evil, that’s who.
EDITOR’S
NOTE: At his speech at the United Nations on Wednesday, Secretary
of State Colin Powell introduced the name of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a
vital link between Iraq and al Qaeda. But Michael Ledeen introduced the
name on NRO on December 12, 2002. Powell's example of Zarqawi, in fact,
proves more than the administration likely wanted to prove: As
Ledeen shows in his December 12 piece, Zarqawi not only proves Iraq but
Iran. We reprint the NRO scoop from December below (with one change: the
spelling of Zarqawi's name, to be consistent with the State department
choice of spelling).
terrorist by the name of Abdullah S. (name withheld for some reason I
can't quite fathom) was arrested in Germany, along with 13 other members
of a Palestinian Islamic group called al Tawhid. Since last April, Abdullah
has been very cooperative with German authorities, who have brought the
entire group to trial on charges of planning suicide terrorist operations
in Europe against Jewish and American targets, and also against the German
Army.
The
case was reported in Die Zeit on the 5th of December, and its absence
from the American press is yet another indication of the lackluster performance
of our journalistic paladins. For the head of al Tawhid is a chap called
Mohammed Zarqawi, and Zarqawi is simultaneously a top officer of al Qaeda,
and he lives and works in Tehran. Abdullah S. has pointed out to German
intelligence officers that al Tawhid could not function without the active
support of the Iranian regime. And he has provided many chapters and many
verses with pithy details that all go to support the picture of Iran I
have presented in The
War Against the Terror Masters and in this ongoing series in NRO.
To wit:
— Zarqawi
is a Palestinian with a Jordanian passport, and he supervises terrorist
training camps near Herat and Kabul, thus confirming the ongoing role
of Iran/al-Qaeda in organizing and running terrorist operations in Afghanistan;
— According
to German intelligence, Zarqawi is a key figure in the "reorganized
al-Qaeda" as well as one of the major coordinators of Iranian-sponsored
terrorism in Europe. His group, al-Tawhid, has arranged false documentation
for more than 100 al Qaeda fighters who escaped from Afghanistan during
the war, provided them with funds, passports, and safe haven (near Tehran),
and then organized their movement out of Iran to other areas, some in
the Middle East, others — as Abdullah S. demonstrates — in
the West;
— German
prosecutors now realize that Iran is a major center for al Qaeda, and
they have identified roughly a dozen camps around Tehran where al Qaeda
terrorists are taken care of by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. These
camps are part of an elaborate underground railroad: The terrorists
and their families are moved out of Afghanistan and Pakistan into Iranian
Baluchistan and then into Iran proper. From there they go by air or
land either to Beirut or to Damascus (the State Department's "ally"
in the war against terror), and then into the Bekka Valley of Lebanon
to one of the legendary centers of Hezbollah terror, ein Hilweh. Once
their training and phony identities are completed, they move on;
— The Germans
have now confirmed that there have been meetings and that there is ongoing
cooperation between al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden and Hezbollah's chief
of operations, the equally legendary Imad Mughniyah. Not only are they
cooperating on terrorist operations, but they are working closely to
secure their wealth: Al Qaeda and Hezbollah work together to move gold
and diamonds from Karachi to Sudan, via Iran.
In short, there is
now public information to confirm what I have long asserted — and
what the CIA and others have long denied — namely that there is a
working relationship between Hezbollah and al Qaeda, and that this is
all made possible by the Iranian regime.
Die Zeit tells
us that the German government is very upset by these discoveries, because
the Germans, like many Europeans, thought they'd bought off the mullahs,
and it's distressing to them to find the Iranians planning suicide terrorism
on the soil of the motherland. And there's more. A German news agency
reported a week ago of the seizure, by German Customs agents, of a shipment
of 44 electronic switching modules (worth roughly $75,000) "that
could be programmed to detonate a nuclear bomb." These handy German
products were headed from Stuttgart to Singapore, with an unknown final
destination. What's the connection? "An article published today in
Focus Magazine potentially implicates two Iranian men, one of whom carries
a Swedish passport."
Meanwhile, the estimable
David Rose in the latest Vanity Fair calmly and carefully lays
out a very convincing case of close working relations between Iraq and
al Qaeda. He tells us that his sources in the United States intelligence
community speak of "hundreds" of reports of contacts between
al Qaeda terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks and Iraqi intelligence
officials "in the United Arab Emirates." That would most likely
be Dubai, the Iranian colony that, along with Iranians in town, has been
laundering Saddam's money, handling Saddam's illegal oil exports and generally
providing an all-service, one-stop help station for Iran and Iraq. All
of which points to yet another point I have stressed: It is a mistake
to think of Iran and Iraq as scorpions in a bottle. They, along with the
Syrians and the Saudis, are working together against us (which is why
we will find ourselves in a regional war once we start the campaign against
Iraq).
It's always nice
to be vindicated by events, but I don't want further vindication in the
weeks and months ahead, if, as I fear, it costs the lives of young Iranians
fighting for freedom in their country and the lives of young Americans
fighting the war against the terror masters.
Iran is the heart
of darkness. Enough already. Do it now.
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terrorist by the name of Abdullah S. (name withheld for some reason I
can't quite fathom) was arrested in Germany, along with 13 other members
of a Palestinian Islamic group called al Tawhid. Since last April, Abdullah
has been very cooperative with German authorities, who have brought the
entire group to trial on charges of planning suicide terrorist operations
in Europe against Jewish and American targets, and also against the German
Army.
