You have to take a lot of the reports about the hot-on-the-trails manhunts of top terrorists with a huge grain of salt because they don’t often pan out — but the latest report on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi makes sense.
The report: he’s injured. Why it makes sense: by all accounts he is the target of a monumental manhunt, second only to the hunt for Osama bin Laden himself. The AP reports:
Al-Qaeda’s branch in Iraq, blamed for numerous terror attacks on U.S. and Iraqi targets, said Tuesday in an Internet posting that its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been wounded and called on supporters to pray for his recovery.
The posting’s authenticity could not be verified, but it was posted on a Web site known for carrying prior statements by al-Qaeda in Iraq and other militant groups.
Indeed, it would be hard to project why this would be a fake posting. His being injured wouldn’t throw security forces after him off his trail but encourage them to redouble their efforts on the theory that he has perhaps slowed down. MORE:
The statement, which purportedly was from the group’s media coordinator, Abu Maysarah al-Iraqi, did not say how or when al-Zarqawi was injured. Al-Iraqi is known to be the group’s media coordinator, but there was no way to confirm if the statement was true or that it was posted by al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, has claimed responsibility for attacks on Iraqi civilians and security forces, kidnappings and beheadings of foreigners, and has a $25 million bounty on his head — the same as for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
“Let the near and far know that the injury of our leader is an honor, and a cause to close in on the enemies of God, and a reason to increase the attacks against them,” the statement said.
The report notes that earlier reports said the U.S. was looking into whether the terrorist — who if you recall is believed to have personally sliced off the heads of the hapless, helpless, screaming bound hostages who graced what were basically Internet “snuff” films last year — was being treated at a Ramadi hospital.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.