AGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 8 — American officials here
have obtained a detailed proposal that they conclude was written by
an operative in Iraq to senior leaders of Al Qaeda, asking for help
to wage a "sectarian war" in Iraq in the next months.
The Americans say they believe that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a
Jordanian who has long been under scrutiny by the United States for
suspected ties to Al Qaeda, wrote the undated 17-page document. Mr.
Zarqawi is believed to be operating here in Iraq.
The document was made available to The New York Times on Sunday,
with an accompanying translation made by the military. A reporter
was allowed to see the Arabic and English versions and to write down
large parts of the translation.
The memo says extremists are failing to enlist support inside the
country, and have been unable to scare the Americans into leaving.
It even laments Iraq's lack of mountains in which to take refuge.
Yet mounting an attack on Iraq's Shiite majority could rescue the
movement, according to the document. The aim, the document contends,
is to prompt a counterattack against the Arab Sunni minority.
Such a "sectarian war" will rally the Sunni Arabs to the
religious extremists, the document argues. It says a war against the
Shiites must start soon — at "zero hour" — before the Americans hand
over sovereignty to the Iraqis. That is scheduled for the end of
June.
The American officials in Baghdad said they were confident the
account was credible and said they had independently corroborated
Mr. Zarqawi's authorship. If it is authentic, it offers an inside
account of the insurgency and its frustrations, and bears out a
number of American assumptions about the strength and nature of
religious extremists — but it also charts out a battle to come.
The document would also constitute the strongest evidence to date
of contacts between extremists in Iraq and Al Qaeda. But it does not
speak to the debate about whether there was a Qaeda presence in Iraq
during the Saddam Hussein era, nor is there any mention of a
collaboration with Hussein loyalists.
Yet other interpretations may be possible, including that it was
written by some other insurgent, but one who exaggerated his
involvement.
Still, a senior United States intelligence official in Washington
said, "I know of no reason to believe the letter is bogus in any
way." He said the letter was seized in a raid on a known Qaeda safe
house in Baghdad, and did not pass through Iraqi groups that
American intelligence officials have said in the past may have
provided unreliable information.
Without providing further specifics, the senior intelligence
officer said there was additional information pointing to the idea
that Al Qaeda was considering mounting or had already mounted
attacks on Shiite targets in Iraq.
"This is not the only indication of that," the official said. The
intercepted letter also appears to be the strongest indication since
the American invasion last March that Mr. Zarqawi remains active in
plotting attacks, the official said.
According to the American officials here, the Arabic-language
document was discovered in mid-January when a Qaeda suspect was
arrested in Iraq. Under interrogation, the Americans said, the
suspect identified Mr. Zarqawi as the author of the document. The
man arrested was carrying it on a CD to Afghanistan, the Americans
said, and intended to deliver it to people they described as the
"inner circle" of Al Qaeda's leadership. That presumably refers to
Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The Americans declined to identify the suspect. But the discovery
of the disc coincides with the arrest of Hassan Ghul, a Pakistani
described by American officials at the time as a courier for the
Qaeda network. Mr. Ghul is believed to be the first significant
member of that network to have been captured inside Iraq.
The document is written with a rhetorical flourish. It calls the
Americans "the biggest cowards that God has created," but at the
same time sees little chance that they will be forced from Iraq.
