CIA identifies masked killer in video

By Seattle Times news services

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

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Government officials yesterday also revealed that the FBI questioned Berg in Iraq because of possible ties to confessed al-Qaida member and accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. After questioning, Berg was cleared of suspicion.

Al-Zarqawi, who's also a suspect in the 2002 murder of a U.S. official in Jordan, heads his own terrorist organization but maintains contacts with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, officials said. The United States has offered $10 million for information leading to the capture or killing of al-Zarqawi, whose real name is Ahmad Fadhil al Khalayleh.

CIA analysts compared the voice of the man in the video with an audiotape issued in April in which a man identifying himself as Zarqawi called for Muslims to "burn the earth under the occupiers' feet."

Al-Zarqawi appears to be seeking an increasingly high-profile presence. As late as March, U.S. officials said he was not known for making public statements or taking credit for attacks. But in the past five weeks, he has released three recordings, including the beheading.

Although al-Zarqawi has terrorist ties stretching from Europe to Central Asia, he is believed to have been working out of Iraq for some time.

The Jordanian-born Palestinian is a poisons expert. He is thought to be responsible for hundreds of deaths in Iraq. Last month, al-Zarqawi was sentenced to death in absentia in Jordan for masterminding the successful 2002 plot in the murder of Laurence Foley, a diplomat and administrator of U.S. aid programs in Jordan.

The man who killed Berg and who called President Bush "dog of the Christians" does not identify himself. But the tape is labeled "Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi slaughters an American infidel with his own hands."

In the video released Tuesday on the Internet, Al-Zarqawi read a lengthy statement that criticized Islamic scholars and the "shameful photos" of the humiliation of men and women at the Abu Ghraib prison. He then decapitates Berg.

Zarqawi is the purported author of a recent letter that called for Sunni Muslims to turn against Shiites for cooperating with the U.S.-led occupation. His goal is an extremist Islamic government in Iraq and the Middle East.

Authorities believe Zarqawi may be in central Iraq because Berg's body was found near Baghdad within hours of his death.
 
Questions have yet to be answered about how Berg ended up in the hands of Zarqawi and the circumstances of Berg's last few weeks in Iraq.

When FBI agents in Iraq first questioned Berg on March 26, while he was detained at an Iraqi police station in Mosul, he wasn't suspected of being linked with Moussaoui, a senior Justice Department official said, on condition of anonymity.

But Berg volunteered that he'd been questioned by the FBI once before, in connection with the Moussaoui investigation after his computer password turned up in Moussaoui's belongings, the official said. That piqued the FBI agents' interest, and they asked that he be kept in detention while they investigated further.

The original Moussaoui link was determined in 2002 to be "a total coincidence," the official said, and FBI agents in Iraq determined that Berg should be released, indicating they also found nothing suspicious.

But the investigation delayed Berg's release long enough that he missed a flight back to the United States on March 30. By the time he returned to Baghdad on April 6, Iraq was in the grip of a bloody insurgency, with U.S. troops fighting throughout the country and foreigners being taken hostage.

Berg's father acknowledged in a television interview yesterday that his son had once been questioned by the FBI because of the computer password.

Berg attended the University of Oklahoma for a time, and Moussaoui, who was arrested in August 2001 in Minnesota when he tried to enroll in flight school, had lived in Norman, Okla., where the school is located.

FBI officials don't know how Moussaoui got Berg's password, but they originally were investigating whether Berg had been friends with two of Moussaoui's roommates, Hussein al Attas and Mukkaram Ali, who also were students.

U.S. officials have denied that Berg was in U.S. custody in Iraq. But Berg's family apparently had been told via e-mail from a State Department consular officer that Berg was being held by the U.S. military.

State Department officials confirmed yesterday the authenticity of the April 1 e-mail from Beth Payne, who was the U.S. consular officer in Baghdad until mid-April. But State Department spokeswoman Kelly Shannon said late yesterday that the diplomat had been given erroneous information from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Not until a day after Berg's release from jail was the diplomat told that Iraqi police had held Berg, Shannon said.

Other versions of events surfaced yesterday. A U.S. general in Mosul said Iraqi police detained Berg at the FBI's request, but the police chief of Mosul disputed assertions that his department arrested Berg.

Berg told friends in Baghdad after he was released that the police had detained him because they suspected he was an Israeli spy. His friends quoted him as saying the police became suspicious because of his last name and an Israeli stamp that was in his passport.

During his detention, Berg was visited three times by FBI agents and monitored for his well-being by U.S. military police, U.S. officials say, but Dan Senor, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition running Iraq, said that Berg "was at no time under the jurisdiction or within the detention of coalition forces."

Senor said agents told Berg that Iraq was too dangerous for unprotected American civilians.

A State Department spokeswoman said a U.S. consular official in Iraq spoke with Berg on April 10 and offered to "assist him in departing Iraq by plane" for Jordan. She said Berg declined and said he planned to travel overland to Kuwait.

Compiled from Knight Ridder Newspapers, USA Today and Associated Press reports.