Al-Qaeda’s number-two leader has issued a video saying that hundreds of suicide bombings in Iraq have ”broken the back” of the United States military — the latest in a volley of messages by the terror network’s most prominent figures.
Ayman al-Zawahri, an Egyptian militant believed to be hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan, said on Friday that US and British forces have bogged down in Iraq and ”have achieved nothing but loss, disaster and misfortune”.
American troops, acting on tips from Iraqi intelligence, meanwhile, killed the reputed al-Qaeda boss of Samarra, where a Shi’ite shrine bombing two months ago nearly plunged the country into civil war.
An American soldier was killed in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad, the US military said, making April the deadliest month for American forces in Iraq this year. The latest American death, which occurred on Thursday evening, brought the number of US troops who have died this month in Iraq to at least 69.
Although that figure is well below some of the bloodiest months of the Iraq conflict, it marks a sharp increase over March, when 31 American service members were killed. January’s death toll stood at 62 and February’s at 55. In December 2005, 68 Americans died.
Reasons behind the rising US deaths are unclear, and US military officials have cautioned not to interpret cyclical changes as the beginning of a trend. Some US officers have suggested the increase could be due to better weather this month, making it easier for insurgents to launch attacks.
Sectarian violence
The increase in US deaths comes at a time when the US military says sectarian violence among Iraqis is declining after a sharp rise in the wake of the February 22 bombing in Samarra that triggered reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics.
In a briefing on Thursday, Major General Rick Lynch told reporters sectarian attacks in the Baghdad area had fallen by 60% last week, diminishing fears of civil war.
That could also indicate militants were shifting their attacks on US and Iraqi forces, their traditional targets throughout the three-year insurgency.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi warned in an internet video earlier this week that US ”dreams” in Iraq ”will be defeated” and ”what is coming is even worse”.
The 16-minute video by al-Zawahri, posted on Saturday on an Islamic militant web forum, also came within the same week as an audiotape by al-Qaeda’s top leader, Osama bin Laden.
Al-Zawahri said that al-Qaeda in Iraq ”alone has carried out 800 martyrdom operations [suicide attacks] in three years, besides the sacrifices of the other mujahedin, and this is what has broken the back of American in Iraq”.
Arrests
Separately, the spokesperson of a Sunni Arab political party, Dhafer al-Ani, told Iraqi state television that two members of an undisclosed militia group have been detained in the slaying of Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi’s sister.
Mayson al-Hashimi (60) was slain on Thursday by gunmen firing from a car as she left her home in a south-western neighborhood. Her bodyguard was also slain. Two weeks ago, the vice-president’s brother, Mahmoud al-Hashimi, was shot and killed while driving in a mostly Shi’ite area of Baghdad.
Interior ministry officials said they were unaware of any arrest. Al-Ani said he learned of the arrests from the Iraqi army.
Also on Friday, former leader Saddam Hussein, who is being tried in Iraq on charges of crimes against humanity, turned 69. Small pro-Saddam rallies were staged in his hometown of Tikrit and a Sunni district of Baghdad.
In Najaf, a Shi’ite holy city where opposition to the former Sunni-dominated regime runs deep, dozens mocked the ousted ruler in a rally during which a man wearing a Saddam mask rode a horse through the streets alongside a police escort.
In other violence on Friday:
A roadside bomb killed an Iraqi police officer and wounded two in south-western Baghdad, police said.
Police found the corpses of two middle-aged Iraqi men in a mostly Sunni Arab neighbourhood of western Baghdad. Two other bodies were found in Kut, police said.
An Iraqi soldier was killed in Ramadi, where American soldiers exchanged gunfire with insurgents, US officials said. No US casualties were reported.
— Sapa-AP