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World

Document: Insurgency is 'bleak'

The paper, which has not been authenticated, details Iraqi terrorists' plans for stirring trouble abroad.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 16, 2006

BAGHDAD - Bombings in the West, kidnappings, disseminating messages that threaten Americans or U.S. interests - all these acts of terror will be effective so long as Iran is falsely implicated, according to a document purportedly captured in an al-Qaida in Iraq hideout.

The Iraqi government released the three-page document Thursday. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office said Iraqi forces found it in the hideout of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi after the U.S. airstrike that killed him on June 7.

There was no way to confirm the authenticity of the information attributed to al-Qaida, and a U.S. military spokesman disputed its origins. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the document had been taken from a computer in a raid during the three-week operation to track down Zarqawi.

The document also recommends declaring a relationship between Iran and terrorist groups, and producing bogus confessions that Iran has weapons of mass destruction.

Arrests, weapons seizures and money shortages are taking a heavy toll on al-Qaida's insurgency in Iraq, the document said.

American and Iraqi forces have killed 104 insurgents in 452 raids nationwide since Zarqawi's death last week, the U.S. military said.

According to a translation of provided by national security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie, the al-Qaida document said the best way to overcome the "current bleak situation" would be to involve U.S. forces in a "war against another country" or hostile group.

Vice President Dick Cheney said the document, if authenticated, shows the terrorists know they are losing the war.

The words "are fascinating because they do reveal - obviously whoever wrote them, assuming they are authentic - somebody who believes they are on the losing end of the engagement," he said on radio's Sean Hannity Show.

Mustafa Alani, a terror expert at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, said he did not believe the document was authentic.

"I wonder why they would put their strategy down in writing, even on a computer. These people learned a good lesson a long time ago," he said, recalling that one of Zarqawi's computers was seized earlier.

Terror consultant Evan Kohlmann called Alani's criticism "simplistic."

"They do have to write these ideas down somewhere. At a certain point, you have to have written records," said Kohlmann, the New York-based founder of GlobalTerrorAlert.com.

But Kohlmann said it's impossible to say whether the document is authentic.

Despite the document's pessimistic assessment and a fresh security crackdown in Baghdad, violence erupted in the capital Thursday and at least 24 killings were reported in the country.

Also Thursday, the Army announced it has opened a criminal investigation into the suspicious deaths of three men in military custody in Iraq in early May.

The investigation was prompted by suspicions raised by soldiers about the deaths in Coalition Force custody in southern Salahuddin province on or about May 9.

[Last modified June 16, 2006, 07:07:27]