Who is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi?

The Nicholas Berg Video

Barely a couple of weeks later (11 May 2004), Al Zarqawi is reported as being the mastermind behind the execution of Nicholas Berg on May 11, 2004.
Again perfect timing! The report coincided with calls by US Senators for Defense Sec Donald Rumsfeld to resign over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. It occurs a few days after President Bush’s “apology” for the Abu Ghraib prison “abuses” on May 6.
The Nicholas Berg video served to create “a useful wave of indignation” which served to distract and soften up public opinion, following the release of the pictures of torture of Iraqi prisoners. (See the intelligence assumptions underlying Operation Northwoods, a secret Joint Chiefs of Staff plan to kill civilians in the Cuban community in Florida, and blame it on Fidel Castro. (http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NOR111A.html ) .
CNN coverage of the Nicholas Berg execution was based on a mysterious report on an Islamic website, which CNN upholds as providing “evidence” of Al-Zarqawi’s involvement:
ENSOR: The Web site claims that the killing was done by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist whose al Qaeda affiliated group is held responsible by U.S. intelligence for a string of bombings in Iraq and for the killing of an American diplomat in Amman. CNN Arab linguists say, however, that the voice on the tape has the wrong accent. They do not believe it is Zarqawi. U.S. officials said the killers tried to take advantage of the prison abuse controversy to gain attention.
…
BROWN: So, the administration said today we’ll track these people down. We will get them beyond, I guess, this belief that Zarqawi somehow was involved. Are there any clues out there that we heard about?
ENSOR: This is going to be very, very difficult. They’ve been looking for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for several years now. There’s a large price on his head. He’s been blowing up a lot of things in Iraq according to him and according to U.S. intelligence. They don’t know where he is, so it’s — I don’t think they have any clues right now, at least none that I know of — Aaron.
A subsequent more definitive report by CNN was aired 2 days later on 13 May 2004
The CIA confirms that Nicholas Berg’s killer was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; The CIA acknowledges sticking to strict rules in tough interrogations of top al Qaeda prisoners.” (CNN)
BLITZER Because originally our own linguists here at CNN suspected that — they listened to this audiotape and they didn’t think the it sounded, the sounded like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But now definitively, the experts at the CIA say it almost certainly is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi?
ENSOR: They say it almost certainly is. There’s just a disagreement between the CNN linguists and the CIA linguists. The U.S. Government now believes that the person speaking on that tape and killing Nick Berg on that tape is the actual man, Abu Musab al- Zarqawi.
Did the US officials check the mysterious website or was it CNN?
The video footage published on the website was called «Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi shows killing of an American». ” Then the CIA experts released a statement saying that Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was the man in the mask who beheaded the US citizen Nick Berg in front of a camera.” (See http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/SAT405A.html ). Yet several reports question the authenticity of the video. (http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CAR405A.html ).
Al Zarqawi is Jordanian. Yet the man in the video “posing as Jordanian native Zarqawi does not speak the Jordanian dialect. Zarqawi has an artificial leg, but none of these murderers did. The man presented as Zarqawi had a yellow ring, presumably a golden one, which Muslim men are banned from wearing, especially so-called fundamentalists.” (See Was Nick Berg killed by US intelligence? by Sirajin Sattayev, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/SAT405A.html
Another report states that Zarqawi was dead.
Immediately when the issue of his artificial leg was mentioned in relation to the video, US officials revised their story, stating they were not sure whether he actually lost a leg: “U.S. intelligence officials, who used to believe that Zarqawi had lost a leg in Afghanistan, recently revised that assessment, concluding that he still has both legs.” (News and World Report, 24 May 2004).
There were a number of other aspects of the video, which suggest that it was a fraud: there was no blood when Nicholas Berg was beheaded. The audio was not in synchrony with the video, indicating that the film might have been manipulated.
3/11 The Madrid 11 March 2004 Train Bombing
While the press dispatches provide no evidence of of Al Zarqawi’s involvement in the Madrid 3/11 bombing, several of the reports implied, without supporting evidence, that he was involved. According to the CIA, the Moroccan group which allegedly “supervised the bombings in Madrid, [were] acting as a link between al- Zarqawi and a cell of mostly Moroccan al-Qaeda members.” (The Australian, 27 May 2004)
A CNN statement two days after the 3/11 Madrid bombing states that Al Zarqawi may be planning attacks on “soft targets” in Western Europe:
LISOVICZ: And Jonathan, specifically, Abu Musaab al Zarqawi is someone you have described as al Qaeda 2.0, which is pretty scary.
SCHANZER: Yes. Abu Musaab al Zarqawi is the man we caught; we intercepted his memo last month. U.S. intelligence officials found this memo. It indicated that he was trying to continue to carry out attacks against the United States. He was seeking help from the larger al Qaeda network and was seeking to foment internecine violence inside Iraq. This is a man dangerous; he’s been linked to attacks in Riyadh, Istanbul and Morocco. This is essentially a freelancer. This is a lone wolf, someone that’s acting alone in the name of al Qaeda.
CAFFERTY: Where do we stand in your opinion on this war on terrorism? We have got this terrible situation in Madrid. We’ve got this fellow, Zarqawi, you are talking about, the lone Wolf that is active, some think inside Iraq. We have got terrorist attacks happening there. There is discussion all over Western Europe of fear of terrorism, possibly being about to increase there. Are we winning this war or are we losing it? What is your read?
SCHANZER: I think we’re winning it. We’ve certainly — I mean counterterrorism at its core is just restricting the terrorist environment. So we’ve cut down on the amount of finances moving around in the terrorist world. We have arrested a number of key figures. So we are doing a good job.(CNN,13 March 2004)
For details on the Madrid bombing see, Madrid ‘blueprint’: a dodgy document by Brendan O’Neill at http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ONE404A.html