Zarqawi’s Palestinian No. 2 Dies in US Targeted Assassination

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Zarqawi’s Palestinian No. 2 Dies in US Targeted Assassination

Posted: 9/25/2004 5:44:17 PM EDT

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=909www.debka.com/article.php?aid=909

Zarqawi's Palestinian No. 2 Dies in US Targeted Assassination

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

September 25, 2004, 6:54 PM (GMT+02:00)

US eliminates high value Zarqawi operative, Palestinian Omar Yusef
Juma`a aka Abu Anas, in Baghdad

On Thursday, September 23, US forces resorted to targeted
assassination to dispose of Abu Anas al-Shami, a senior aide of the
Jordanian al Qaeda mastermind, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in Baghdad.

His real identity, we reveal here, was Omar Yusef Juma'a, a
Palestinian terrorist operations expert from the West Bank town of
Tulkarm. DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources report that al-Shami was
killed by an American missile in Baghdad's Shiite slum district, Sadr
City. However, the American military in Iraq is more sparing than
Israeli forces with the specifics of a targeted assassination, and it
is not clear if the missile was fired from a helicopter, a drone or
one of the US special force units which patrol and mount ambushes in
Baghdad, Fallujah and other insurgent hotbed towns.

No one knows exactly how many lieutenants Zarqawi has, probably 4 or
five. But locating and killing a high-profile member of Zarqawi's
organization a few days after the capture of another top Zarqawi aide,
known as Omar Baziyani (an alias), is a considerable American feat in
its relentless offensive against the group behind the deadly suicide
bombings and hostage-taking atrocities afflicting Iraq. These
operations go on clandestinely behind the well-publicized US air strikes.

The news of Abu Anas's death rippled quickly across at least two
borders. A traditional Muslim "mourners' tent" sprang up in the Haj
Hassan district of the Jordanian capital, Amman. According to our
Jordanian sources, candy was handed out to all comers, a custom
borrowed from the ritual for Palestinian suicide killers who die in
attacks on Israel and are honored as "martyrs."

However on the Western Bank of the Jordan, DEBKAfile's Palestinian
sources report, Yasser Arafat ordered Juma'a's kinfolk in Tulkarm to
refrain from setting up a mourners' tent lest the true identity of a
top al Qaeda operative be blown and his Palestinian movement implicated.

The West Bank Palestinian in fact reached the highest rank a
Palestinian has ever attained in al Qaeda's operational hierarchy from
the time that Laden founded the organization in Peshawar 17 years ago.

The makeup of the stream of visitors thronging to the mourners' tent
in Amman is instructive – Jordanian Palestinian notables, Palestinian
Authority officials and officers based in Jordan, and Jordanian
lawmakers, members of the fundamentalist Islamic Front.

Upon leaving the tent, the visitors were interviewed by Jordanian
intelligence and asked to explain why they saw fit to console the
family of a high al Qaeda operative. According to DEBKAfile's
counter-terror sources, some protested lamely they had been on their
way to a wedding when they chanced to hear of a family in mourning and
stopped on their way to fulfill the Islamic observance of comforting
the bereaved.

Our exclusive sources have has turned up some salient landmarks of
Jama'a's history.

Aged 35 when hit by the American missile, the Palestinian terrorist
took an Islamic studies degree at Medina University in Saudi Arabia.
In the 1990s he moved from Tulkarm to Jordan to join Issam Barqawi in
founding a fundamentalist Islamic front called Bayhat al-Imam, the
Imam's Oath, which many Palestinians joined. With Arafat's extensive
covert network in Jordan and powerful levers of control in the
Jordanian Palestinian community, he must have known about the new
movement and may be assumed to have been involved in its establishment.

Juma'a moved from Jordan to join up with Zarqawi's men in Iraq late in
March 2003, before the US-led invasion army reached Baghdad. From that
time on, he assumed his alias of Abu Anas.

In 2004, he became deeply involved in an al Qaeda operation outside Iraq.

DEBKAfile's sources reveal that it was Juma'a who was behind the
abortive chemical weapons plot against Jordan that was thwarted last
April and first exposed on this site on April 21, 2004. It was his
idea to send one of three chemical explosives trucks smuggled in from
Syria to Jordan to the Adam Bridge linking Jordan and Israel and try
to get it across for a large-scale poison attack on an Israeli target.
If the truck failed to cross the border, it was ordered to blow up at
the border terminal. In either case, he would have established the
precedent of the first al Qaeda chemical attack against an Israeli target.

Neither came off and the Jordanian authorities later rounded up an al
Qaeda cell in Amman

Abu Anas distinguished himself as a key operations officer in the
eighteen months he spent with the Jordanian master terrorist in Iraq
and was elevated to number two spot. Two months ago, he received his
last assignment, the sensitive mission of implanting a major al Qaeda
team in the Shiite Sadr City of Baghdad. Zarqawi calculated that by
quickly filling the vacuum left by the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada
Sadr's defeat in Najef, al Qaeda would draw in Mehdi Army militiamen
deprived of their leader and establish a formidable anti-US
anti-government presence in the Iraqi capital. By killing the
Palestinian terrorist mastermind, the Americans stymied this plan.

Posted: 9/25/2004 5:45:32 PM EDT

[#1]

Excellent!

Posted: 9/25/2004 5:45:38 PM EDT

[#2]

Get some more for the U.S.A.

Posted: 9/25/2004 5:46:26 PM EDT

[#3]

Time for number one.

Posted: 9/25/2004 5:47:06 PM EDT

[#4]

/Mr. Burns/....EXCELLENT..../Mr. Burns/

Posted: 9/25/2004 5:47:19 PM EDT

[#5]

we're just working our way up

J

Posted: 9/25/2004 5:48:27 PM EDT

[#6]

A TRULY refreshing post!

Posted: 9/25/2004 5:52:26 PM EDT

[#7]

Dear Israel,

Thank you for showing us how it is supposed to be done. We had over the last half century lost our way. Thank God that at least on nation on this earth did not and that was you. Your example has proven what the proper course of action is. Now we shall perfect what you have shown us, and the terrorists who disect the innocent and helpless shall not rest one night until they are permanently in torment forever.

Posted: 9/25/2004 5:53:04 PM EDT

[#8]

It sure would be nice to see this story on the BS channels (CBS, ABS, NBS and CNNBS)

Posted: 9/25/2004 5:55:11 PM EDT

[#9]

HA HA !!

That means "No soup for you"!!!!!

Posted: 9/25/2004 5:57:42 PM EDT

[#10]

This thread is useless without video.

Posted: 9/25/2004 5:58:09 PM EDT

[#11]

One down, several million to go.

- BG

Posted: 9/25/2004 6:06:31 PM EDT

[#12]

Good start boys. Keep em coming!

Posted: 9/25/2004 6:21:24 PM EDT

[#13]

Is Debka.com a reliable source?

Posted: 9/25/2004 6:23:14 PM EDT

[#14]

awesome!

Posted: 9/25/2004 6:24:15 PM EDT

[#15]

Quoted:
Is Debka.com a reliable source?

Debka is one step above the Weekly World News, just below Coast To Coast

Posted: 9/25/2004 6:31:18 PM EDT

[#16]

"targeted assassination". Now thats my kind of war

Posted: 9/25/2004 6:51:39 PM EDT

[#17]

The makeup of the stream of visitors thronging to the mourners' tent in Amman is instructive – Jordanian Palestinian notables, Palestinian Authority officials and officers based in Jordan, and Jordanian lawmakers, members of the fundamentalist Islamic Front.

I'd spring a cool $1K to pay for a missile to hit that tent!!

wganz
¶

Posted: 9/25/2004 6:57:05 PM EDT

[#18]

Quoted:
The makeup of the stream of visitors thronging to the mourners' tent in Amman is instructive – Jordanian Palestinian notables, Palestinian Authority officials and officers based in Jordan, and Jordanian lawmakers, members of the fundamentalist Islamic Front.

I'd spring a cool $1K to pay for a missile to hit that tent!!

wganz
¶

Don't worry. I have a feeling they are all being filmed and ID'd for later disposal.

Posted: 9/25/2004 6:58:19 PM EDT

[#19]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Is Debka.com a reliable source?

Debka is one step above the Weekly World News, just below Coast To Coast

This is so true

Posted: 9/25/2004 7:03:33 PM EDT

[#20]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Is Debka.com a reliable source?

Debka is one step above the Weekly World News, just below Coast To Coast

Well hell, this is just as bad as tuning in to CBS news.

Posted: 9/25/2004 7:03:43 PM EDT

[#21]

Quoted:
Is Debka.com a reliable source?

AP reported this on 9/22 also.

Posted: 9/25/2004 7:08:30 PM EDT

[#22]

get some...

nice work boys - give em hell

Posted: 9/25/2004 7:13:50 PM EDT

[#23]

ulululululululululululu.

and yes, Debka needs caution. 24-hr rule. (but it's been 11 already).
They are mostly right, usually. But only maybe 3 in 10 of their more incredulous articles pan out.

And I'll believe THEM before I ever believe Dan Rather again.

Posted: 9/25/2004 7:23:30 PM EDT

[#24]

Quoted:
ulululululululululululu.

and yes, Debka needs caution. 24-hr rule. (but it's been 11 already).
They are mostly right, usually. But only maybe 3 in 10 of their more incredulous articles pan out.

And I'll believe THEM before I ever believe Dan Rather again.

I'll second that!

Scott