Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Who was Abdullah Abu Azzam al-Iraqi?

http://billroggio.com/archives/2005/09/who_was_abdulla.php#comments
September 27, 2005
Who was Abdullah Abu Azzam al-Iraqi?
By Bill Roggio
The death of Abdullah Abu Azzam al-Iraqi at the hands of the Coalition 
has raised questions. What was his value to al Qaeda in Iraq, and wasn't 
he captured last winter? Who was he? Abdullah Abu Azzam al-Iraqi was 
also known as Abdallah Nahim, but his real name was Abdallah Mohammed 
al-Juhaari. He was a major figure in al Qaeda in Iraq, and he had not 
been captured prior to his death.
A major problem with the nom de guerres used by terrorists is that 
several operatives often take the same name. This generates much 
confusion in the intelligence community and among the media and the public.
The nom de guerre “Azzam” is a case in point. Abdallah Azzam (the 
original, deceased) was the ideological mentor of Osama bin Laden with 
whom he co-founded MAK, the foreign jihadi movement during the 
Afghan-Russian war. He advocated a global jihad against the West. 
Because of his connection with bin Laden and his vision for jihad, 
Azzam’s name is used extensively in jihadi circles. There is a terrorist 
group in the Palestinian territories called the Abdallah Azzam Brigade, 
which recently claimed responsibility for the Sharm el-Sheikh attack in 
Egypt (Azzam the Original was a Palestinian). There is an American 
al-Qaeda operative called Azzam the American. In Iraq, there were two 
other terrorists that went by the name of Abu Azzam, both of whom have 
been captured.
• Abu Azzam: Captured January 05. Involved in rocket attacks on Mosul 
Air Field as well as other targeted Coalition Forces in Mosul.
• Abu Azzam: Captured 19 March 05. Responsible for conducting VBIED 
operations as well as coordinating logistics between the various cells 
in Mosul operating under Abu Talha.
Neither of these terrorists had the stature of the just-killed Abdullah 
Abu Azzam al-Iraqi. A CENTCOM arrest warrant and rewards bulletin 
describes him as follows:
     Sheikh Abdalluh Abu ‘Azzam (aka Amir of Anbar)- is considered to be 
a lieutenant of the foreign terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He 
has issued a statement that threatened the Jama’at Al Tawhid would hunt 
down Iraqi officials and symbols of the current government; he has also 
claimed the attacks of Izz Al Din Salim, the Undersecretary of the 
Ministry of Interior and the killing of the Mosul Governor. Sheikh 
Abdalluh Abu ‘Azzam is considered a grave threat to the Iraqi people and 
to the rebuilding of Iraq. The Multi National Force in Iraq is offering 
a reward of $50,000 for information leading to the capture of Abu 
Abdalluh ‘Azzam.
Blackanthem reports the just-killed Abu Azzam had "served as the Emir of 
Anbar Province for much of 2004 and led the largest group of al Qaeda in 
Iraq fighters in Fallujah during Autumn 2004 until they were defeated by 
Coalition forces during Operation Dawn. In Spring 2005, he assumed the 
position of Emir of Baghdad, where he reportedly directed and controlled 
all terrorist activity and operations in and around the city."
Reuters states Azzam “commanded day-to-day operations in Baghdad and 
other cities, while also financing attacks and the passage of militants 
into Iraq from neighboring countries” as well as acting as a religious 
adviser to Zarqawi. Iraqi national security adviser Muwaffaq Rubaei 
estimates Azzam “must have killed 1,200 Baghdadis” via car bombings and 
other attacks.
Azzam’s direction of the terrorist attacks in Baghdad is significant in 
itself. Baghdad is a crucial theater for al Qaeda, as the attacks in and 
around the capitol provide the media attention and legitimacy al Qaeda 
seeks. al Qaeda in Iraq would not allow a low level operative to command 
such an important operation.

killed by Coalition forces in Baghdad
Fantastico!  congratulazioni.  Credo sia il dodicesimo numero due di Al
Zarqawi (circa) che hanno ammazzato, quest'anno.  Pensa che hanno
ammazzato un n.2 giusto esattamente un'anno fa:
http://debka.com/article.php?aid=909
Si vede che la fine di settembre e' la stagione propizia per dare la
caccia a quella specie assolutamente non in via di estinzione:  i n.2
di Al Zarqawi.
http://www.exile.ru/2005-June-03/war_nerd.html
The more I hear about how Zarqawi's behind all the trouble in Iraq, the
more it reminds me of a bad cop movie. Every cop movie has the same
plot: they track down Mister Big and the crime ring gets broken. I
remember a classic example, the Ninja Turtles movie, where it turns out
the man behind a wave of juvenile delinquent crime wave is Shredder, a
Ninja godfather. Actually Shredder was pretty cool, especially the
thorn claws on his gloves. Not the kind of outfit you'd want to wear
when operating heavy machinery, and probably a little hot for those NYC
summer scenes, but slick in a WWF kind of way.
Then you read the real crime news and there is no Mister Big. It's a
million little muggers and thugs, with no organization at all. Nobody
puts that in a script because it's too depressing. If the problem is
just one guy, you can beat it by killing or capturing him. If it's a
million little nobodies, you're doomed.
So naturally the Pentagon PR ops have been trying to pin the Mr. Big
tail on some Arab's ass. First it was Saddam. Everybody was so sure
that once we snatched him out of his backyard hole, peace would break
out. But attacks went up, not down, after he was captured. So we had to
find another Mr Big, and that's how this Zarqawi became America's Most
Wanted.
At least Zarqawi's a better nominee than Saddam. He's a real guerrilla
operator, with a solid mujahedeen resume: born in Jordan, probably to
Palestinian refugee parents, grew up in the town of Zarqa (his alias
means "The Guy from Zarqa"), went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets
and got radicalized.
You know, what we should have done with all those brave Muslim
volunteers who helped boot the Russkies out of Afghanistan was hold a
big victory banquet in Kabul, thank them all for their contribution to
Liberty:and then nuke the banquet hall. It sounds cold-blooded, but if
you want to rule the world you have to do some stuff you won't want to
tell your grandkids about.
Those guys had got used to blowing things up in the name of Allah and
didn't feel like quitting just because the Russians went home. They
went back to their native slums all over the world and started making
no end of trouble. It was Afghan mujahedeen vets who taught the Somalis
how easy it was to bring down a chopper, even one as well armored as
the Blackhawk, by firing RPGs at the tail rotor. It's Afghan vets who
form most of the effective Al Qaeda cells around today.
Zarqawi came home to Jordan around 1990, but didn't get the hero's
welcome he was expecting. The Jordanians weren't so sentimental about
the boys who went to Afghanistan. They threw him in jail. It may not
have been due process, but it was a smart move. The dumb part was
letting him out, which they did sometime in the late 90s. He hung out
in Europe-have you noticed how these Islamic wackos can do whatever
they want in Europe? It's like all you have to do is wear a big Taleban
beard and an "I heart Jihad" t-shirt, and German or French immigration
will wave you through the VIP line.
Zarqawi bounced around Pakistan and Iran, then ended up in northern
Iraq working with a small Kurdish terrorist gang. Which suggests he's
strictly small-time.
The reason these Jihadi websites keep making such a big fuss about
Zarqawi's every move is basically the same one that keeps the Pentagon
blaming everything in Iraq except the weather on him. They need a Mr.
Big for their propaganda as much as we do. Except their version is a
hero, Robin Hood in a greasy skullcap, always outsmarting the big dumb
American crusaders. Essentially he's a great fundraising gimmick, a
cross-eyed posterboy, for Al Q. They haven't done shit in years, and
the only way they can keep the rich donors happy is taking credit for
every blast in Iraq.
That may be why Zarqawi's PR men put out that very, very weird press
release last week announcing that he'd been wounded in Iraq. If you
know the rules of guerrilla war, you had to be shocked by that
communique. Information is the only important weapon in this kind of
war, and the last thing you want is to keep the enemy updated about
where you're leaders are or how they're doing. Ideally the enemy
shouldn't even know their names or have their pictures.
Here are a few possible scenarios for the press release:
1. Simple disinformation. In other words, Zarqawi ain't wounded, didn't
leave Iraq, and may be doing something major inside Iraq. The release
is designed to send the bloodhounds barking off in the wrong direction.
2. Zarqawi is dead. Maybe the news that he was hit got out, and his
people are trying to buy time by keeping him "alive" for morale's sake.
It's real hard to know when a guerrilla leader's dead. The Pentagon
claimed Zarqawi was killed in an air raid in 2004. The Russians have
claimed every Chechen leader was killed more times than a Hindu cat.
Don't believe a guerrilla death claim any more than you would a
guerrilla-war body count. Wait till you see the video:and then wait
some more.
3. Not-so-simple disinformation. Maybe he died years ago. Maybe he
doesn't exist. The whole Zarqawi business could be a Jihadi/Pentagon
internet scam.
4. Small-Time PR. This is my bet: Zarqawi's real, he's been actually
wounded, but he just doesn't matter much. He's one of these foreign
romantics who get involved in somebody else's war, make a lot of noise,
become a pinup star but don't rate among the real leaders.
Like I've said before, foreigners just don't cut it in a guerrilla war.
Zarqawi, a Jordanian/Palestinian, can't disappear in an Iraqi crowd.
That means most of his time has to be spent surviving. His face has
been all over the net for years now, and there's a $25 million bounty
on him. Like they say in spy movies, his cover is blown. No way he can
be really useful as a guerrilla leader. That job puts you out on the
street all day, moving through checkpoints, changing your identity
non-stop.
If he's just another Jihadi, how come both sides, Al Q and the
Pentagon, have been blowing Zarqawi so hard for all these years?
Because both sides want to make the Iraq insurgency a classic Mr Big
story. Al Q wants to give its own lame, James-Bond multinational crew
credit for what's actually a homegrown, neighborhood-based Iraqi
uprising. The Pentagon wants to put a face-an outside agitator's
face-on the car bombers. America will do anything to avoid having to
face the most obvious fact about Iraq: they hate our guts, all of them.
Pasting Zarqawi's face all over the net also hides the fact that our
so-called intelligence units still don't know a damn thing about the
insurgency. It makes it seem as if we're hot on the trail of the one
demon responsible for the whole mess.
Which suits the insurgents just fine. That's the most depressing angle
of all on Zarqawi: it's not just the Pentagon and Al Q who are happy to
keep him in the spotlight. The real bosses of the insurgency must get
down on their knees every night and thank Allah for the Z-man, because
he keeps the heat off them.
They're not Mr. Big. There is no Mr Big. They're more like a few
thousand Mr. Middles, a whole crowd of ex-officers and clan leaders in
every Sunni town or village who have some kind of loose control over
some of the insurgents. Not all-there are hundreds of insurgent groups
fighting, and nobody controls them all.
But it stands to reason that some of the bigger, more professional
networks have real leaders. These guys will turn out to be solid,
intelligent men, usually young-20s, early 30s-who get respect in the
neighborhood. They'll be homegrown Iraqis with real standing in the
clan and tribal networks that really run things in Iraq.
And they'll be anonymous. Guerrilla war kills off the glory-seekers
like Zarqawi pretty quickly. The guys who last will be total unknowns,
until the new regime gives them their medals when we finally give up on
this mess.
They'll be shy by Arab standards, coolheaded types. Contrary to what
the dumb-ass press keeps saying, the leaders don't need to "fuel" the
insurrection. It's got all the fuel it needs. The Iraqis, not just the
Sunnis either, are so pissed-off by now that the real leaders' job is
mostly persuading the hotheads to take it slow, plan their attacks.
And when these guys get a little R&R, their favorite TV will be the
nightly news, with pictures of this poor fool Zarqawi's beady-eyed face
staring at them. They'll be cheering him on, just like the Pentagon
boys and Al Qaeda fundraisers in Jakarta and Riyadh and Berlin.
That's the Zarqawi fan club-the weirdest bedfellows since Jackson and
Culkin.


 di Al Zarqawi.
mai che becchino quelli che anche la gente comune conosce... :-D

 di Al Zarqawi.
Senza contare la sfilza di "bracci destri" ......
-- 
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
http://www.newsland.it/news
 segnala gli abusi ad 
ab...@newsland.it

 
http://www.exile.ru/2005-June-03/war_nerd.html
Azz... E se lo dice un blogger allora ..... !!!!!
*ROTFL*
-Stefano

 >killed by Coalition forces in Baghdad
Oooops. "sorprendentemente", sembra una bufala.  Ma non ti preoccupare.
 Cattureranno il prossimo braccio destro fra qualche giorno :-D
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9518556/site/newsweek/
The 'Second' Man
The slain Abu Azzam may not have been Zarqawi's top deputy after all.
Will his death have any effect on the Iraq insurgency?
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 4:31 p.m. ET Sept. 28, 2005
Sept. 28, 2005 - U.S. intelligence officials and counterterrorism
analysts are questioning whether a slain terrorist-described by
President Bush today as the "second-most-wanted Al Qaeda leader in
Iraq"-was as significant a figure as the Bush administration is
claiming.
In a brief Rose Garden appearance Wednesday morning, Bush seized on the
killing of Abu Azzam by joint U.S-Iraqi forces in a shootout last
Sunday as fresh evidence that the United States is turning the tide
against the Iraqi insurgency.
"This guy was a brutal killer," Bush told reporters in remarks that
were also carried live on cable TV. "He was one of [Abu Mussab
al-]Zarqawi's top lieutenants. He was reported to be the top
operational commander of Al Qaeda in Baghdad."
Bush's comments came one day after Gen. Richard Myers, the outgoing
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon
that the U.S. military considered Abu Azzam the "No. 2 Al Qaeda
operative in Iraq, next to Zarqawi."
But veteran counterterrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann said today there are
ample reasons to question whether Abu Azzam was really the No. 2 figure
in the Iraqi insurgency. He noted that U.S. officials have made similar
claims about a string of purportedly high-ranking terrorist operatives
who had been captured or killed in the past, even though these alleged
successes made no discernible dent in the intensity of the insurgency.
"If I had a nickel for every No. 2 and No. 3 they've arrested or
killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, I'd be a millionaire," says
Kohlmann, a New York-based analyst who tracks the Iraq insurgency and
who first expressed skepticism about the Azzam claims in a posting on
The Counterterrorism Blog (
counterterror.typepad.com
). While agreeing
that Azzam-also known as Abdullah Najim Abdullah Mohamed
al-Jawari-may have been an important figure, "this guy was not the
deputy commander of Al Qaeda," says Kohlmann.
Three U.S. counterterrorism officials, who asked not to be identified
because of the sensitivity of the subject, also told NEWSWEEK today
that U.S. agencies did not really consider Abu Azzam to be Zarqawi's
"deputy" even if he did play a relatively high-ranking role in the
insurgency.
The  characterization of Abu Azzam as No. 2 to Zarqawi is "not quite
accurate," said one of the officials. According to this official, it
would be more correct to describe Abu Azzam as a "top lieutenant"
to Zarqawi who was involved in "running" terrorist operations in
Baghdad-not all of Iraq. Other top lieutenants operate in other parts
of the country, the official indicated.
Two other officials agreed that Abu Azzam was a senior figure, perhaps
the emir (leader), of Al Qaeda operations in Baghdad, and that he was
of critical importance in moving funds to insurgent operatives in the
Iraqi capital area. "He's a money guy," one official said. "He
is significant but not No. 2 [to Zarqawi]," said another official.
One reason to question the official Bush administration portrayal of
Abu Azzam is that recent Al Qaeda statements and audio recordings have
described another Iraqi insurgent leader-a man who goes by the nom de
guerre Abu Abdelrahman al-Iraqi-as the group's "deputy
commander," Kohlmann says. Another Iraqi national, known as Abu Usaid
al-Iraqi, has been described in these statements as directly under him
in the Qaeda structure as the commander of the group's military wing.
Neither man has been reported to have been captured or killed by U.S.
or Iraqi forces, Kohlmann adds.
Even the U.S. military in recent months have seemed to attach greater
significance to other figures in Zarqawi's network. Last July, for
example, Coalition forces in Iraq issued a statement asking for help in
finding yet another insurgent leader-Abu Thar al-Iraqi, who was
described as "Al Qaeda's chief bombing coordinator for Baghdad."
As Kohlmann  sees it, the Zarqawi network in Iraq is far more amorphous
and loosely structured to accurately place any particular figure in a
hierarchical structure. "These aren't Fortune 500 corporations,"
he says.
The real question is whether taking any one figure out will really have
an appreciable impact on an insurgency that seems to have shown a
remarkable resiliency. For nearly two years now, U.S. officials have
touted previous arrests or captures, most notably that of toppled
leader Saddam Hussein in December 2003, as developments that would
cripple the insurgency.
In January 2004, for example, the U.S. military announced the arrest in
Fallajuh of Husam al-Yemeni, who was described in press accounts out of
Baghdad as the "right-hand man" of Zarqawi. In November 2004, Iraqi
officials announced they had arrested in Mosul a man named Abu Saaed,
who was described by the Iraqi national-security adviser as Zarqawi's
"alleged lieutenant."
IRAQIS NAB TOP ZARQAWI AIDE read the headline on the Fox News Web site
on Jan. 24, 2005, touting the arrest of yet another man, Sami Mohammed
Ali Said al-Jaaf, also known as Abu Omar al-Kurdi. The Associated Press
story reporting al-Jaaf's detention quoted a U.S. military statement
describing him as the "most lethal" of Zarqawi's lieutenants,
noting that he had been linked to the August 2003 bombing of United
Nations headquarters in Baghdad.
Yet despite the hopes of U.S. military officials, the capture of these
figures had little impact on the suicide bombing attacks that have been
the signature of Zarqawi's forces. "If anything, after the capture
of al-Jaaf, they went up," said Kohlmann.
For what it is worth, Al Qaeda in Iraq itself denied that Abu Azzam had
been second-ranking leader of the organization. In a statement posted
Tuesday on the group's Web site, the "Information Department of Al
Qaeda Organization in the Land of Two Rivers" claimed that Abu Azzam
al-Iraqi was a "soldier" in the Iraqi Al Qaeda organization and
that he had indeed been a "leader of one of the active brigades in
Baghdad." However, according to the statement, allegations by U.S.
officials that Abu Azzam was the "second man" in Iraqi Al Qaeda
"are mistaken." The statement, translated by the SITE Institute, a
private research group, added: "We tell these midgets: stop saying
that because it will not do any good."

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/dining/28factory.html
Israel on 38th Street
Last year Pick-a-Pita, an Israeli grill, hung a sign over the sidewalk
on
38th Street outside. Before that, advertising was by word of mouth.
...
On a recent weekday Eyal Levy, who recently sold the restaurant but is
staying on as a manager, pointed to a heap of chopped purple leaves.
"This
is exactly the red cabbage I grew up on," said Mr. Levy, who was born
in
Tel Aviv. For him cooking authentic Israeli food in America is about
maintaining traditional recipes.
He said that if one asks in Israel what style is the shawarma, or
shaved
rotisserie meat, "they will tell you, this is Turkish style or Egyptian
style." Pick-a-Pita prepares the latter. "And you will know, because
Turkish style will have nuts in it, or else it will be the particular
combination of spices making it Egyptian."
Most shawarma in New York, he said, has "no style whatsoever."
Muttering,
he offered the label often given to this no-man's-land cuisine:
"Mediterranean."
Mr. Levy serves what he himself craves. "There is days I am getting
home
after working out and want to eat something," he said. "I say: 'Where's
my
restaurant now? What am I going to do, order a hamburger?' "
Pick-a-Pita,
247 West 38th Street; 
(212) 730-7482
.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2005/09/theft-of-culture-is-no-less-offensive.html
The theft of the culture is no less offensive than the theft of the
land.
Here the New York Times speaks about Shawarma and falafil and Arabic
bread
as "authentic Israeli food." What do you say to that? Now I am not a
nationalist purist; I am not even a nationalist. I in fact prefer to
refer
to many aspects of the Arab culture, like food here, as "Middle East"
rather than Arab because what we assume is purely Arab is really the
product of the contributions by Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds,
Greeks, and by
Muslims, Christians, Jews, and others, and by the interactions between
different population groups and different ethnicities). But to make it
"authentic Israeli"? Really. No, New York Times. David Ben Gurion did
not
bring the recipe of Shawirma with him from Russia. Not to my knowledge
anyway. The Palestinians had their own culture befor their homeland was
taken away from them.