The Sunday Times   January 22, 2006

Zarqawi ‘sleeps in suicide belt’
Hala Jaber

IRAQ’S most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, goes to sleep every night wearing a suicide belt packed with explosives, according to a leading insurgent who met him two weeks ago.

“He never takes it off,” said Sheikh Abu Omar al-Ansari, leader of a Sunni resistance group called Jeish al-Taiifa al-Mansoura (Army of the Victorious Sect).

“He told me: ‘I would rather blow myself up and die as a martyr — and kill a few Americans along the way — than be arrested and humiliated by them’.”

His account, passed to The Sunday Times by a reliable intermediary, is the first description of Zarqawi in Iraq since Washington slapped a $25m bounty on his head, the same as the reward for the killing or capture of Osama Bin Laden.

The sheikh’s two-day meeting with the Jordanian-born Zarqawi provided a rare insight into the terrorist accused of masterminding the videotaped beheadings of western hostages — including Ken Bigley, the Liverpool-born engineer, in 2004 — and countless suicide bombings and assassinations.

“He is known by America and the world as the prince of beheadings, the murdering sheikh of innocents, the blood spiller,” said Ansari.

By contrast, he said, Zarqawi seemed a “simple” man and put on a show of humility at a two-day meeting to secure the co-operation of the Army of the Victorious Sect and other groups with Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

According to the sheikh, Zarqawi sat cross-legged on a rug to eat with his guests and some of his 12 bodyguards, most of whom also wore suicide belts and carried American and Russian automatic rifles.

He helped his guests to wash before praying and devoted five hours a day to reading the Koran, listening to taped sermons at night and holding religious discussions with his entourage, Ansari said.

The sheikh also claimed one of the most widely circulated pieces of supposed western intelligence about Zarqawi — that he sought treatment in Iraq after losing a leg in a US missile strike on Al-Qaeda militants — is false.

Ansari confirmed that he has both his legs and “walks with confidence and balance”.

He appeared to have recovered from chest and shoulder injuries he suffered in a separate US airstrike last year.

Zarqawi was born to a Palestinian refugee family in Jordan, where he is said to have grown up a tattooed, semi-literate, Shi’ite-hating thug.

It was after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003 that Zarqawi became notorious for large-scale attacks, including the bombing that August of the UN headquarters in Iraq.

The attack killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN secretary-general’s envoy to Iraq, and 21 others.

A year later, the Arab television station Al-Jazeera broadcast a tape in which Bin Laden called Zarqawi “the prince of Al-Qaeda in Iraq”.

Intelligence analysts are divided over how much authority Zarqawi commands in the insurgency. Some in the Middle East have even suggested that Zarqawi may not exist.

Yet there is little doubt that the apparently modest figure Ansari met was the man on wanted leaflets distributed by US forces across the country.

According to the sheikh, Zarqawi was dressed casually in trousers and a simple shirt. He wore a light beard and moustache and his hair was cut short.

The meeting with Zarqawi had been arranged to help insurgent groups co-ordinate their attacks on coalition forces.

Ansari’s Sunni group was founded in May 2003 and first made headlines a year later when it claimed to have kidnapped a pair of Russian energy workers. They were freed a week later.

Al-Qaeda members said the insurgent groups attending the meeting were discussing possible co-ordination of their attacks and plans to create an Islamic state. “We exchanged talks and views and I spent many hours with him on the first day,” said Ansari. “He did not dominate the meeting and refused to impose his views.”

At prayers Zarqawi, 39, deferred to his elders, telling them: “I am younger than you and of less knowledge and status.” He could be heard weeping during worship, which is not uncommon among extremely devout Muslims.

The next morning, the leaders of four other Sunni groups joined the gathering. There was little water so Zarqawi found a bucket and poured for his guests — a task usually left to junior servants. Dishes of rice, chicken and meat stew were served to the leaders as they sat on woollen rugs on the floor.

The meeting led to the subsequent announcement about an umbrella body called the Mujaheddin Council, which posted a statement on the internet two weeks ago. The council claims to be representing Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Army of the Victorious Sect and the four lesser-known Sunni groups. Other leading Sunni groups were conspicuously absent.

The development suggested to some Middle East watchers that despite his reputation, Zarqawi may be struggling to consolidate his grip on the resistance. Many Iraqis have tired of violence and politicians were beginning negotiations this weekend to form a coalition government after election results announced on Friday.

“Zarqawi is not in the position he used to be before — he seems to have lost the hospitality that he enjoyed in the past in Iraq,” said Dr Nimrod Raphaeli, a specialist at the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington. “He is trying to find a new base and new links with other groups.”

www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2003822,00.html

as long as he dies and doesn't go in a courtroom like Saddam.

Sounds like he is living a miserable existance..  

Not a problem... More pieces to divide up amongst the 72 virgins...

Maybe Jack Bauer will be able to get the frequency to set off his bomb vest.

good?


whoop de doo?

To bad a 1000lb bomb did not land in the middle of this meeting.

Wait til he has a good wet dream or eats some bad falafels and trips the switch.

I hope he doesn't have an AD.

Quoted: Not a problem... More pieces to divide up amongst the 72 virgins...

I would guess that CIA would be very intressed in capture him alive and interrogate him.

Quoted: as long as he dies and doesn't go in a courtroom like Saddam.

This still haunts me. Why was that bastard not shot when
they yanked him out out of his burrow. At least he is in the "Pete Rose" suite.
Can someone post a pic with the CIA and Iraqi Personnel
pulling him out?

Quoted: I hope he doesn't have an AD.

????

I hope he meets his Maker as quickly as possible.  I'm not particular as to how that happens...  

Quoted: Quoted: I hope he doesn't have an AD. ???? I hope he meets his Maker as quickly as possible.  I'm not particular as to how that happens...

I was joking.  I thought it would be fitting if he accidentily blew himself up.

Quoted: ... Can someone post a pic with the CIA and Iraqi Personnel pulling him out?

Quoted: good? whoop de doo?

Just thought it was kind of interesting.  Look at the life of a terrorist on the go.

 These higher ups like him didn't make it to their posistions of power by being willing to die for the cause.  They are exactly what they claim to hate in us, money hungry, power hungry bastards.  And all of them are fucking cowards.

Quoted: Quoted: ... Can someone post a pic with the CIA and Iraqi Personnel pulling him out?

Anyone have a line on who that soldier is?  I'd love to buy him a drink.

Quoted: “Zarqawi is not in the position he used to be before — he seems to have lost the hospitality that he enjoyed in the past in Iraq,” said Dr Nimrod Raphaeli, a specialist at the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington. “He is trying to find a new base and new links with other groups.” www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2003822,00.html

That would suck, growing up with your first name being "Nimrod"


- rem

All he needs is an oops moment and his ass is dead.  Let's all pray it happens.

Max

Quoted: Maybe Jack Bauer will be able to get the frequency to set off his bomb vest.

Speaking of Saddam: wasn't he also supposed to have received a special training for blowing himself up ?

Quoted: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c6/SaddamSpiderHole.jpg/300px-SaddamSpiderHole.jpg Anyone have a line on who that soldier is?  I'd love to buy him a drink.

I read an article that soldier wrote. Something to the effect that he punched saddam in the face, I believe down in the hole. Thats why his mouth is bloody. I think it was payback for what he had done to his family? I'll try and find the article. Good read.

ETA: Here is the article long but a good read;
riverfronttimes.com/issues/2005-04-13/news/feature_full.html

Synopsis:

"I Punched Saddam in the Mouth" • A man known only as "Samir" worked as an Arabic interpreter for United States Special Forces in late 2003 when Saddam Hussein was captured in Tikrit: "I was so angry. I began cussing at him, calling him a motherfucker, a son-of-a-bitch -- you name it. I told him I was Shiite from the south and was part of the revolution against him in 1991. I said he murdered my uncles and cousins. He imprisoned my father. In Arabic, Saddam told Samir to shut up. And when Saddam called him a traitor, an enraged Samir silenced his prisoner with a flurry of quick jabs to the face. I punched Saddam in the mouth."