Zarqawi appears in rare Web video

CAIRO, Egypt - In a rare video posted Tuesday on the Internet, al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and said any government formed in Iraq would be merely a “stooge.”

He also mocked the U.S. military in Iraq for what he called suicides, drug-taking and mutinies, and he warned that “worse” attacks were to come.

The video, released just days after Iraq named a new prime minister and a high-profile audiotape from bin Laden appeared on Arab TV, seemed a deliberate attempt by al-Zarqawi to claim the spotlight again following months of taking a lower profile.

It also came just one day after a triple bombing at a resort in Egypt that killed at least 24 people, including 21 Egyptians and three foreigners.

Training outdoors
The video was believed the first to show al-Zarqawi’s face. The bearded, black-clothed terrorist leader, thought to be about 40, was in a flat desert landscape, dotted with scrub brush as if after a spring rain, that looked startlingly like Iraq’s western Anbar province.

The footage showed him and about two dozen insurgents, masked and dressed in black uniforms, undergoing combat training.

In another scene, al-Zarqawi was filmed inside, sitting with his lieutenants and Anbar’s insurgent commander, according to a caption in the video. The men, sitting on traditional Arab cushions and mats, could be seen discussing strategy over a large map spread on the ground.

“Any government which is formed in Iraq now — whether by Shiites or Zionist Kurds, or those who are dubbed Sunnis — would only be a stooge,” al-Zarqawi said in the video. “They are a poisoned dagger in the heart of the Muslim nation.”

Effort to portray unity, official tells NBC
The video appeared to be “an effort to display unity among the jihadis in Iraq,” particularly in light of recent comments by others in the movement that he had been “sidelined,” a senior U.S. counterterrorism official told NBC News. 

Besides Zarqawi’s message in the video, the background in several scenes may have been intended to send a message, the official said.

In one part of the video, al-Zarqawi sat dressed in black and with a black skullcap on his head, with an ammunition vest hung from his neck and an automatic rifle propped against the wall to his right.

In one scene, Zarqawi appears in front of the Mujahedin Shura Council logo. “They want to portray unity,” the official said. “That logo was part of the effort.”

The official also noted that Zarqawi appeared in the field, apparently planning operations and demonstrating his prowess with weapons. The scene may have been intended to show Zarqawi’s command role, the official said.

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