Two things about Abu Musab I'll remember, which weren't much covered in all the reports and obituaries published today.
The first was his dramatic, symbol-laden entry on to the Iraqi battlefield. If you don't know what I'm referring to, that's because our dozy media missed it and the American authorities chose, at the time, not to draw attention to it. On August 7, 2003, the Jordanian embassy was truck-bombed - it was the first vehicle-borne bombing in Baghdad after the invasion. Following the August 19, 2003, bombing of the UNHQ, I wrote this on an openDemocracy board:
It has not yet reported (as far as I know) that the August 7th truck-bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad coincided with the fifth anniversary of the truck-bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Such a coincidence of date, modus operand[i] and target would not, however, have been missed (at least one hopes not) by the Pentagon or the CIA; and it implied, of course, al-Qaeda, which is well known for its enmity towards the Jordanian leadership (and the UN). Whether al-Qaeda bombed the Canal Hotel on August [19th] or not (and they are but one of three groups that have so far claimed responsibility), from the 7th August 2003 onwards the United States ought to have informed the UN's special representative that al-Qaeda was strongly suspected of carrying out the Jordanian embassy bombing and that therefore the UN’s current security in Baghdad needed urgent upgrading. If someone on the forum knows better, please correct me. Thanks.
I then found more information and posted it later in the thread.
The US government has already publicly alleged [1] that al-Qaeda chose the August 7th date for the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa because August 7th (1990) was the date the US military first entered Saudi Arabia in Operation Desert Shield [2].
During the closing arguments of the 2001 embassy bombing trial in New York (against OBL et al), assistant US attorney Kenneth Karas told the jury:
==Quote==
And in August of 1990, something that is very significant in al Qaeda lore happens, and that is Iraq invaded Kuwait. And in response to that invasion, you know this by way of stipulation, President Bush dispatched the first of the American troops, with the agreement of the Saudi government, to Saudi Arabia. And he did that on August 7th, 1990. And eight years later, ladies and gentlemen, that is when al Qaeda will bomb the embassies in Nairobi and in Dar es Salaam. You see, the American military presence in Saudi Arabia is something that becomes the cause of al Qaeda. You will see this in what Al-Fadhl tells you about Bin Laden's private statements to al Qaeda members and you see this and we will go through this in Bin Laden's public statements. More than anything else, he says that it is the duty of al Qaeda and, in his view, everybody, every Muslim, to do anything in their power to drive the Americans from Saudi Arabia, to kill them anywhere they are. And on August 7th, 1998, the anniversary of the arrival of those troops, that is precisely what al Qaeda did. That is precisely what they did. ==End quote== [1]I was tangentially alerted to this additional al-Qaeda/August 7th coincidence by a highly speculative 2002 article on 9-11 anomalies by a former Reagan staffer, Barbara Honegger. Among much else, she wrote:
==Quote==
9-11 is U.S. abbreviation for 'emergency', and that's precisely the kind of code name the military and intel communities like to give their 'exercises'. Islamic radicals, rather, choose significant anniversary dates for their attacks - such as Aug. 7 for the twin bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa. To bin Laden and his followers, Aug. 7 is their "Pearl Harbor" anniversary - the day U.S. troops, then under orders from first President Bush's Secretary of Defense Cheney, landed in Saudi Arabia following Saddam Hussein's Aug. 2, 1990 invasion of Kuwait. I've checked ten years of back papers: Sept. 11 is not among the 'anniversary' dates for radical Islamicists. They didn't choose it. (President Bush is also keenly aware of Aug. 7 as the key 'anniversary' date in bin Laden's mind -- that's why he requested the one brief he was given before 9-11 on possible terror attacks on the U.S. mainland, held at his Texas ranch, the day before -- Aug. 6, 2001). ==End quote== [3]So my original message ignorantly understated the probable extent of US intelligence's knowledge of a possible al-Qaeda/August 7th link.
[1] http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-37.htm
[2] www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug2000/n08082000_20008088.html
[3]www.911pi.com/honneger.htm(no longer available)
At the time, I was most interested in the Americans' failure to warn the UN, the UK and others that al-Qaeda was in town and that they should move within the Green Zone. (After the UNHQ was bombed, the UK hastily relocated its embassy inside the GZ.) Now, I think that the myth that Zarqawi was a myth began when the Americans chose not to reveal immediately the meaning of the August 7 bombing. By deciding to only slowly admit publicly to the presence of al-Qaeda-inspired foreign fighters, by the time they couldn't deny it anymore, the public was sceptical of the claims, and some were led to doubt Zarqawi's existence. But the August 7 bombing was redolent of messages that only someone like Abu Musab would have sent: to the Jordanian government - f*ck you; to the Americans - watch out, al-Qaeda's about; and to the al-Qaeda leadership - please let me join your club. It wouldn't have mattered to Zarqawi that the media missed the messages he was sending, because he would have known that they would have been received loud and clear by those to whom they were addressed.
The second thing I'll remember was his vain attempts to get Iraqi women prisoners released from Abu Ghurayb and other prisons. It was his main demand when Ken Bigley was kidnapped. When an ad hoc gang kidnapped Margaret Hassan and the British refused to negotiate with them, they threatened to turn her over to Abu Musab's gang. They were obviously soft in the head, because Zarqawi, campaigning for the release of women prisoners, then predictably called for Hassan's release. That was her death sentence, unfortunately, though it wasn't Zarqawi's fault. What I'm trying to say is that Zarqawi did live by a moral code; it may have been a different code from Cheney's, Bush's and co., but it was there yet never acknowledged by our media.
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