Krekars gruppe hovedmistenkt

Mulla Krekars gruppe Ansar al-Islam er hovedmistenkt for terrorangrepet på FN-hovedkvarteret i Bagdad, sammen med jordaneren Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, sier etterretningskilder til New York Post. Kildene tror Ansar har slått seg sammen med diehards fra Saddams Baath-parti, og at de støttes aktivt av al-Qaida.

«It’s clear bin Laden sees Iraq in the same terms as he saw Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation and he wants to make it the major battlefield in his war against the Jews and the ‘crusaders,’ » said Vincent Cannistrarro, former CIA counter-terrorism director.»

Det samme sa mulla Krekar til en libanesisk TV-stasjon nylig. «There is no difference between this occupation and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979,» he said from Norway, where he has political asylum. Se NYT.

Meldingene om at Ansar al-Islam er aktiv i Irak kommer fra ulikt hold. En av dem er Jessica Stern, lærer ved Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, og forfatter av «Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill.» I en lengre artikkel i NYTimes, skriver hun:

The occupation has given disparate groups from various countries a common battlefield on which to fight a common enemy. Hamid Mir, a biographer of Osama bin Laden, has been traveling in Iraq and told me that Hezbollah has greatly stepped up its activities not only in Shiite regions but also in Baghdad.

Most ominously, Al Qaeda’s influence may be growing. It has been linked to attacks as far apart as Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Morocco. One suspect in yesterday’s attack is Ansar al-Islam, a Qaeda offshoot whose camps in Northern Iraq were destroyed early in the war. In recent weeks American officials acknowledged that members of the group had slipped into Iraq from Iran, had begun organizing in Baghdad and were suspected of plotting bombings, including the Aug. 7 attack on the Jordanian Embassy. In addition, Mr. Mir reported that Al Qaeda was carving out new training grounds in the border region between Iraq and Syria.