Zarqawi wants his own army in Iraq

Sunday Times:

THE leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is attempting to set up his own mini-army and move away from individual suicide attacks to a more organised resistance movement, according to US intelligence sources.

Faced with a shortage of foreign fighters willing to undertake suicide missions, Zarqawi wants to turn his group into a more traditional force mounting co-ordinated guerrilla raids on coalition targets.

Al-Qaeda is sending training and planning experts to help to set up the force and infiltrate members into Iraq with the assistance of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the sources said.

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The change of strategy will make it easier for Zarqawi to link up with Iraqi insurgents and evade the allied special operations teams trying to track him down.

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Wrong. By being tied to a force of any size, it will be easier to find and destroy his forces. He survives now by using small cells that are independent of each other so that the discovery of one will not necessarily unravil the whole. The closer his links with other insurgents the more likely his organization can be penetrated. It should also be noted that many of the other insurgents are now after Zarqawi, something that the Sunday Times should have been aware of. By focusing his attacks on non combatants, Zarqawi has alienated the Iraqi population.