Al Qaeda group said to post online magazine
BAGHDAD -- A new online magazine purportedly posted by Al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq has launched an effort to recruit Muslims to rid Iraq of infidels and apostates -- its names for Americans and their Iraqi partners.
The colorful, well-designed magazine is named Zurwat al-Sanam, Arabic for ''The Tip of the Camel's Hump" -- a reference among Islamic militants to ''the epitome of belief and virtuous activity."
The inaugural 43-page issue was posted two days after Al Qaeda in Iraq, the group led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for an attack Monday against police and army recruits that killed 125 people in Hillah, south of Baghdad. The group has also said it was behind car bombings and attacks that killed 14 police officers Wednesday. Zarqawi's organization has been blamed for many of the bombings, kidnappings, and beheadings in Iraq.
Washington-based counterterrorism specialist Evan Kohlmann said the magazine aims at ''conveying the sense that the organization is professional, capable, and really understands what they're doing."
It was designed as ''an attempt to refute the idea that Zarqawi and these people are desperate. . . . It shows that these people have time on their hands and don't have to worry about mobility," he said.
Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, the designated ''media coordinator" for Zarqawi's group, posted the magazine on the Internet late Wednesday. Saved as an attachment, it has appeared on at least two extremist Islamic websites that have previously posted Al Qaeda statements and claims of responsibility.
Mainly a rehash of letters, tracts, and texts that have previously appeared on the Internet, the magazine includes a vow of fealty from Zarqawi to Osama bin Laden and a pledge to keep fighting. It also includes excerpts from a bin Laden letter commending Zarqawi's fighters. The letter, which appears to be a patchwork of past speeches made by bin Laden, refers to Zarqawi as the ''emir" of Al Qaeda in Iraq and calls on people to ''obey him."
''There's a great difference between the sincere mujahedeen emirs who give up leadership for the sake of their religion and nation, and the region's kings and presidents, who refuse to unite the nation and scrap borders drawn by the crusaders," bin Laden wrote. The cover includes Al Qaeda in Iraq's logo of an AK-47 standing in an open Koran, with a globe in the background and an arm and finger pointed upward. It also has pictures of President Bush, bin Laden, and Abu Anas al-Shami -- the late spiritual leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
