Zawahiri 'Letter' Draws Increasing Skepticism -- GOPUSA

Zawahiri 'Letter' Draws Increasing Skepticism
By Sherrie Gossett
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
October 18, 2005

(CNSNews.com) -- A letter purportedly written by a senior al Qaeda leader -- and said to be authentic by U.S. intelligence officials who released it last week -- may be a forgery, according to Washington analysts who cite numerous anomalies in the text.

Some analysts have gone so far as to label the letter a likely U.S. government "influence operation," which, if exposed, threatens American credibility in the Middle East.

"If this is a forgery, then either it was designed to blow up in the face of the American government; or someone in the 'coalition of the willing' has been caught with their pants down," said one analyst, who spoke with Cybercast News Service on the condition of anonymity.

The 6,000-word letter was dated July 9 and released Oct. 11 by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Intelligence officials said the letter, purportedly penned by Osama bin Laden's chief deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and addressed to Iraqi terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was intercepted in a counter-terrorism operation in Iraq.

Stephen Ulph, from the foreign policy think tank, The Jamestown Foundation, noted that despite the confidence U.S. officials expressed in the letter's authenticity -- namely that it had been verified by "multiple sources over an extended period of time" -- there was little in the way of independent corroboration offered.

The anonymous source remarked that the U.S. "apparently found the original letter, suggesting we 'closed the loop' and have been reading mail of senior al Qaeda for months, yet we appear to not know where [al Qaeda leaders] are at."

Christopher Brown, research associate at the Hudson Institute's Transitions to Democracy program, doubts that Zarqawi was even in Iraq at the time the letter was purportedly written to him, an opinion shared by a retired U.S. intelligence operative who spoke recently with Cybercast News Service.

In email communications with Cybercast News Service last week, Brown also pointed out that Zawahiri uses both Muslim and Christian dates in his letter. The use of Western dual dates is customarily done only for material designed for western consumption, not for internal communications, he said.

The letter, dated July 9, also makes no reference to the July 7 London bombings, Brown noted.

Zawahiri purportedly mentions in the letter that he has a daughter named "Nawwar," which he explains "means the timid female gazelle and the woman who is free from suspicion ..." But Brown questioned why Zawahiri would feel the need to explain the meaning of an Arab word to another Arab.

Furthermore, Zawahiri's alleged definition of "Nawwar" as "timid female gazelle" is incorrect, according to translators with Transperfect Translations, a global translation firm. "Nawwar means: blossom, flower, bright as in illuminated. It also could be a nice female's name, and by extension could be the beginning of the spring season," said the translators.

The letter notes the effectiveness of Pakistani military operations, yet there is little evidence to support that idea, Brown said, except for a three- to four-week period in May when Pakistani anti-terrorist operations were conducted with U.S. assistance.

The Zawahiri letter, if genuine, makes no mention of al Qaeda working "within Iranian strategy" in Iraq, Brown said. That strategy and the accompanying tactics, he added, are serving the terror network's own goals in Iraq as well as those of Iran.

"[B]y declaring all-out war on the Shi'a, [al Qaeda is] driving the Shi'a population further into the hands of the Iranians, who can provide them with security through both their own organizations and what I would venture to say is their either formal or informal control over al Qaeda," Brown said.

"Therefore, the areas that cooperate with the U.S. get hit and the areas that cooperate with Iran become safe havens. This is in addition to their increasing control over the social services, security organizations and most importantly, the political institutions on both the national and local levels," he added.

Aegis Defense Services, a London-based consultancy, has argued that the letter, addressed to Zarqawi, was actually sent to Abu Musab al-Suri, a Syrian who acted as an intermediary for al Qaeda in Europe during the 1990s and whose whereabouts are unknown, according to the Financial Times of London.

A Washington Post editorial by David Ignatius cited skepticism voiced by Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan. Cole had contended on his website that the salutation of the letter was Shiite, not Sunni and may have been the work of Iranian operatives.

There is speculation about the potential political fallout, especially for John Negroponte, U.S. director of national intelligence, if the letter is discovered to be propaganda generated by the U.S.

The cabinet-level position that Negroponte holds coordinates all 15 components of the American intelligence community. It was created in response to one of the recommendations of the 9/11 commission. Negroponte serves as the principal intelligence adviser to the president and the statutory intelligence advisor to the National Security Council.

"If and when this breaks, the blowback of this kind of American hand-in-the-cookie jar could severely hurt us in the Middle East, Europe and with an already skeptical American media that would likely declare all-out war on the administration over this," the Cybercast News Service source requiring anonymity said.

Ulph added that "pending further confirmation of origin, it would be wise to treat the letter with skepticism."