Islam’s Goals

Seized Letter Outlines Al Qaeda Goals in Iraq [Excerpts]

Al Qaeda's top deputy urged the leader of his Iraq branch in July to prepare for the inevitable U.S. withdrawal by carrying out political as well as military actions, and he lectured him that he risked being shunned by an Islamic world angered over his gruesome and not "palatable" killings of fellow Muslims, according to an intercepted letter released yesterday by the U.S. government.

The 6,000-word letter from Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant, Ayman Zawahiri, to Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi amounts to a detailed portrait of al Qaeda's long-term goals in Iraq and the Middle East, and includes a striking critique of how Zarqawi has gone about waging his war against not only U.S. troops but also Iraqi civilians. The letter was posted yesterday on the Web site of Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte -- http://www.dni.gov -- after senior intelligence officials released excerpts of it last week.

Zarqawi has been high on the list of most wanted insurgents since last year after he pledged allegiance to bin Laden, but in recent months U.S. military commanders have given even greater urgency to disrupting his network of foreign fighters and Iraqi supporters. The network is still thought to constitute only a fraction of the Iraqi insurgency in numbers, but it is credited with carrying out a disproportionately large share of the violence, as a result of suicide bombings often aimed at Shiite civilians to foment sectarian strife.

But Zawahiri urged Zarqawi in the letter to change that formula and refocus on politics. When the United States leaves, al Qaeda must be ready to claim as much territory politically in the inevitable void that will arise, he writes. Zawahiri called that stage the setting up of an "emirate," in as much of Sunni-dominated Iraq as possible, to be followed by the longer-term goal of a "caliphate," reuniting the historical Islamic empire centered in modern-day Egypt, Lebanon and Israel.

Zawahiri has spoken before about the broad plans of the al Qaeda movement. In a book smuggled out of Afghanistan in December 2001, Zawahiri said the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks "would be nothing more than disturbing acts" if they "do not serve the ultimate goal of establishing the Muslim nation in the heart of the Islamic world." In the 2001 volume, he said the first goal should be to strike Americans and Jews "in our Muslim countries."

In the new letter, Zawahiri said the Muslim masses "do not rally except against an outside occupying enemy, especially if the enemy is firstly Jewish and secondly American."

In an unusual reverse, the letter asks Zarqawi to send money to al Qaeda, saying many of its "lines have been cut off," and that "we'll be very grateful to you" for financial help (Glasser and Walter Pincus , Washington Post Online, Wednesday, October 12, 2005; A-13).