Bush

Bush: al-Qaida Letter Shows Islam Misused

By HARRY DUNPHY
The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 12, 2005; 11:27 PM

WASHINGTON -- The United States made public a letter from al-Qaida's No.2 to show Muslims that the radical group is perverting Islam, the Bush administration said Wednesday.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the letter from Ayman al-Zawahri to al-Qaida-linked Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq shows the nature of the enemy the United States is facing.

"This isn't a question of hearts and minds," Ereli said. "It's a question of bodies and gore. This is a network, a confederacy of evil that will stop at nothing to advance its radical agenda."

He said that agenda has as its objective is an Islamic empire, starting in Iraq and expanding to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, practicing the abuses and intolerance that the Taliban demonstrated in Afghanistan.

Ereli said al-Qaida is skillful at using the media and modern communications.

"But the best advertisement for what these groups are about is the writing in their own hand, which we've put forward in English and, I would note, in Arabic," he said, "so that those who claim to be speaking in the name of Islam can be seen by Muslims to be the perverters of the religion that they are."

The letter was acquired during U.S. operations in Iraq, officials said. It was written in Arabic and translated into English by the government linguists.

In the letter, Al-Zawahri recommended a four-state expansion of the war in Iraq that would take fighting to neighboring Muslim countries.

Al-Zawahri, a Sunni Muslim from Egypt, also appears to question al-Zarqawi's tactics, in particular the level of attacks on Iraqi Shiites.

Ultimately, al-Zawahri concluded that violence, particularly against Shiite mosques, only raises questions among Muslims.

Al-Zarqawi has been blamed for masterminding car bombings and other attacks in Iraq.