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Video opens window on terror
05/07/2004 20:24 - (SA)
Baghdad - A video, purportedly of suicide-bombers' missions, has been given to Time Magazine correspondent Michael Ware by men reportedly in close contact with Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi's network.
The video chronicles what are supposedly the final days and hours of the militants as they ready themselves for suicide missions.
Superimposed on scenes of them praying and relaxing, are individual shots of the men reciting living wills, explaining why they are carrying out the attacks.
"These are men who are prepared to die in a few days," says Ware, commenting on footage of showing purported attackers resting and joking in a safe house before carrying out a suicide-boat attack in April that targeted offshore oil terminals near the southern city of Basra.
"It's just fascinating to watch a face like that and know in a day or two, he's dead. And he knows this is coming and he welcomes it," he said.
Sophisticated campaign
Ware, who met the militants in the course of a year, says the video underscores the growing sophistication of the group and casts light on how it is working to recruit new followers in an increasingly competitive market for funding for such activities.
It also sends a message to coalition partners and foreigners working in Iraq that "We can get you. You cannot stop us," he said.
The video "is a very, very sophisticated part of Zarqawi's information campaign, stamping him as the star of the new global jihad inspired by Osama bin Laden," said Ware.
Ware said the onus would fall on the new Iraqi government's intelligence apparatus to try to infiltrate these groups if it hoped to thwart a continuation of this violence.
'We're not afraid of death'
High-tech surveillance just didn't work on such insular groups, he said.
"This is their power; it's what they often say to me.
" 'Our great advantage over you is that you've got the technology and you've got everything you want, but you are afraid of death and we are not'," he said.
Last month, the United States military launched four air strikes in Fallujah on what it said were safehouses used by al-Zarqawi, killing dozens of people.
Iraqi authorities have repeatedly blamed suicide attacks on foreign terrorists.
Some of those speaking on the video appeared to have foreign Arabic accents, but others could have been Iraqis.
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