Top US general in Iraq says Zarqawi, al-Qaeda now main threat

[Barrett808]

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The commander of US ground forces in Iraq warned that so-called foreign fighters had eclipsed supporters of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein as the greatest threat to the US-led coalition and its allies.

"What has happened and is very clear is that the terrorist elements of Zarqawi, Ansar al-Islam and linkages to al-Qaeda have begun to take preeminence in the actions being conducted against the coalition," Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez told reporters.

The US-led Coalition Provisional Authority has identified Abu Mussab Zarqawi, a Jordanian long suspected of ties to the Al-Qaeda terror group, as the brains behind a slew of suicide car bomb attacks in Iraq since August.

Coalition officials and the White House earlier this month unveiled a memo which they attributed to Zarqawi as proof of a plan by Islamic extremists to ignite a civil war among Iraq's divided ethnic and religious communities.

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040226/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_us_unrest_sanchez&cid=1514&ncid=1480

[MidwestTransplant]

1. That's what they want us to believe.

Couldn't be the Shia or other indigenous groups that want us out.

[bemildred]

2. I was just reading down in F/A how al Qaeda has

been devastated by TWAT and how OBL is a broken and
disillusioned man. Personally I think OBL is taking a
dirt nap, but that is pure speculation on my part. And
I expect the General here is blowing politically expedient
smoke too ...