Thursday, November 09, 2006

Iraqi group baits al Qaeda

Now that America has decided not to fight the war on terror anymore, it's helpful that others have taken up the fight:

In a mysterious video posted on the Internet today, an unknown masked man identified as "one of the jihad leaders in Iraq" threatens to fight al Qaeda and groups affiliated with it in Iraq.

The tape suggests either a deep split in Iraqi insurgent groups or a skillful propaganda coup by U.S. intelligence services, according to Fawaz Gerges, an ABC News consultant and professor of International Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies at Sarah Lawrence College.

He says there have been major skirmishes between al Qaeda in Iraq and some tribes in the past few weeks resulting in a number of casualties. "Civil war is raging within the broader jihadist movement," notes Gerges.

[...]

Speaking Arabic on the tape, the masked man, "Abu Osama al Iraqi," announces the establishment of a secret alliance of six groups and 16 tribes, a total of 3,000 men, to fight al Qaeda in Iraq and the other groups, who he blamed for killing Sunnis.

"We know that the crusader has been waiting for this day, that it's his happiest day, but we are forced to do so," says al Iraqi. He adds that the plan is to use snipers to kill members of the opposite groups, then start attacking their cars before finally having face-to-face armed confrontations with them.

The same masked man claims to have previously asked Osama bin Laden to remove al Qaeda leaders from Iraq because of their indiscriminate killings.

Though, I think this is a hoax:
The video was produced by an unknown entity called "The Word of Truth." A note posted at the end of the video asks members of al Qaeda to correspond and send questions about the statement to a specific Yahoo! e-mail address.
They want al Qaeda to respond by email? To a yahoo address? Maybe it's the CIA?