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Allawi 'top al-Qaeda target'
12/09/2004 22:01 - (SA)
Dubai - A voice recording, said to be that of suspected al-Qaeda commander Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, released to mark the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States, said Iraq's US-backed premier was the militant network's number one target.
"The traitor (Iyad) Allawi is our main target," said the audiotape, posted on the Islamist website (http://zarqawi911.notlong.com) in the name of Zarqawi's Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) group.
"Await the Angel of Death."
As in previous death threats against the hawkish Iraqi premier, the voice mocked Allawi's past links with the US intelligence services.
"You may have the support of the Christians, but we have on our side (the true) God who knows how to make good his theats." 'Satanic alliance'
The tape took up accusations by Sunni Arab militant groups that Allawi's administration was a creature of a "Satanic alliance" of Christians, Kurds and members of the long oppressed Shiite majority.
Since the US-backed caretaker government was first formed in early June, threats issued in the name of his Islamist opponents have increasingly focused on the prime minister.
In July, an internet statement placed a $285 000 bounty on his head, clearly modelled on the $25m rewards the United States offered for the capture or killing of Zarqawi and before that of Saddam Hussein himself.
A Jordanian national who has a death sentence against him in his home country, Zarqawi is accused by US commanders of organising some of the deadliest attacks in Iraq's 18-month-old insurgency on al-Qaeda's behalf.
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