THE leader of al-Qa’ida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is trying to set up his own mini army and move away from individual suicide attacks to a more organised resistance movement, according to US intelligence sources.

Faced with a shortage of foreign fighters willing to undertake suicide missions, Zarqawi wants to turn his group into a more traditional force mounting co-ordinated guerilla raids on the US-led coalition forces.

Al-Qa’ida is sending training and planning experts to help set up the guerilla force and infiltrate members into Iraq with the assistance of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the sources said.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy leader of al-Qa’ida, claimed in a video posted on an Islamist website yesterday that 800 “martyrdom operations” in three years had “broken the back of America in Iraq”.

The change of strategy will make it easier for Zarqawi to link up with Iraqi insurgents and evade the special operations teams trying to track him down.

Zarqawi came close to capture two weeks ago, international news weekly Defense News reported at the weekend.
theaustralian.news.com.au

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006 at 7:42 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.