Iraqi official's numbers found on Zarqawi's cell phone

A number of Iraqi officials had their telephone numbers listed in the memory of the cell phone of Abu Mussab al Zarqawi, the al Qaeda terrorist that was killed in a bomb blast on June 7 north of Baghdad. The numbers included some members of Iraq's Parliament.



The members of Parliament were rumored to have been Sunni legislators. This is not the first time that Iraq's fledgling government has had problems with enemy infiltration; there have been numerous instances of penetration into Iraq's police force.

This is the latest in the fruits of intelligence harvested from the death of Zarawi. In the aftermath of his death, dozens of raids were launched across Iraq, yielding large weapons caches, military uniforms, and bomb making equipment.

Each incident such as this serves to weaken the presence and effectiveness of al Qaeda in Iraq and abroad.

Related News Links:
www.cnn.com

[edit on 4-7-2006 by UM_Gazz]

What a stroke of luck...

Let alone were they able to find a mobile phone, which survived after a bomb was dropped on the building. They have been able to link it to Zarqawi and to then link the phone numbers to members of the Parliament. To me, this just seems so very lucky - even from the most simple level, you'd assume they'd have secret phones if they were linked to this man - he'd not have their work/home numbers.

However, there is a reason as to why he has those numbers. I am not sure how Iraq works, but the work number of British MPS, you can easily get. This is so people can get a hold of them, furthermore it is likely he would have been in communications with the Parliament. How many times have we seen reprots of them communicating with the terrorists? Hostage takers? So on and so fourth...

Until people can show evidence, that he has phoned them, spoke to them and they knew what he was going to attack, who he was going to target and when I find it hard to place them in jail. After all, British MPS talked to people in the I.R.A. because they understood communication is the key for issues like this.

I wonder if there were any American, Iranian, or Afghani numbers in there?

Food for thought.....

interesting indeed........

What i wanna know is how these terrorists get cell phones. I mean, do they buy pay as you go cards? Or do they sign a contract? Im being serious. What kind of service to they get, and why dont the intel agencies spend a bit more time tracking those?

Of course, its possible it is legit. it would not be unlikely for the terrorists to have a few frontmen in the government helping them to evade capture and giving them heads up for this and that.

Who knows.

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
What i wanna know is how these terrorists get cell phones. I mean, do they buy pay as you go cards? Or do they sign a contract? Im being serious. What kind of service to they get, and why dont the intel agencies spend a bit more time tracking those?

Of course, its possible it is legit. it would not be unlikely for the terrorists to have a few frontmen in the government helping them to evade capture and giving them heads up for this and that.

Who knows.

Its pay as you go, same as the ones used for IED's.


Its the Sat phones that are no longer used much as they are to easily monitored.

Originally posted by jsobecky
Each incident such as this serves to weaken the presence and effectiveness of al Qaeda in Iraq and abroad.

How do you get that? It seems to me to be an indication of the ties between the Iraqi government and the terrorists. It indicates to me that at least some 'officials' are in cahoots with Al Qaeda for some reason. What am I missing?

I’m afraid that anyone who thinks that the Iraqi government is going to have any kind of integrity is simply being naïve. This news, sadly, does not surprise me. The people of Iraq, especially anyone who would find themselves in a governmental position, are not accustomed to operating with integrity or the good of the country. They are as selfish and corrupt as the government that put them into power. It’s all about manipulation and getting what they want. This new Iraqi government cares about its people as much as the USA’s government cares about theirs.

It would be interesting to learn what an investigation of government and terrorist connections would reveal, in Iraq as well as the US and Britain.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
It would be interesting to learn what an investigation of government and terrorist connections would reveal, in Iraq as well as the US and Britain.

yes it would but don't hold your breath..........

interesting to speculate though no?

Originally posted by Odium
To me, this just seems so very lucky - even from the most simple level, you'd assume they'd have secret phones if they were linked to this man - he'd not have their work/home numbers.

Given the lack of detail in the articles, it's not possible to determine that the numbers were not "secret numbers.

How would the Iraqi know this? Perhaps they do not labor under the same "data mining" restrictions that we do here in the US.

Until people can show evidence, that he has phoned them, spoke to them and they knew what he was going to attack, who he was going to target and when I find it hard to place them in jail. After all, British MPS talked to people in the I.R.A. because they understood communication is the key for issues like this.

Well, I'm sure that there would be a record of this communications channel somewhere in the Iraqi intelligence organization. So, if they were legit channels, then they have a defense. Otherwise, they have some explaining to do.

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
What i wanna know is how these terrorists get cell phones. I mean, do they buy pay as you go cards? Or do they sign a contract? Im being serious. What kind of service to they get, and why dont the intel agencies spend a bit more time tracking those?

Good questions. One possible explanation is that there have been incidents of people attempting to buy mass quantities of cell phones from major retailers such as Wal-Mart. That happened here in the US, in Texas, I believe.

From there, it would be a simple matter to use a front company to activate lots of cell phones for their "employees".

The other thing to consider is that most third world and ravaged countries have phone communications systems that are more advanced than those in more industrialized countries like the US. That's because it's much cheaper to go wireless than to expend the money and manpower to build the older "telephone pole" infrastructure. So, the simultaneous activation of large blocks of cell phones is more or less a normal occurrence.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic

Originally posted by jsobecky
Each incident such as this serves to weaken the presence and effectiveness of al Qaeda in Iraq and abroad.

How do you get that? It seems to me to be an indication of the ties between the Iraqi government and the terrorists. It indicates to me that at least some 'officials' are in cahoots with Al Qaeda for some reason. What am I missing?

It's a given that some gov't officials, most likely Sunnis, are in cahoots with AQ. Deceit and back-stabbing are legendary in the mideast; it's pretty much their way of doing business. It's almost expected.

But the fact that these individuals were exposed (allegedly) is good news in that it shows the level of infiltration into the gov't. The punishment that is meted out, if severe enough, will hopefully make others think twice about doing the same.

It's been said that for every terrorist that is taken out, there are a dozen waiting to take his place. But I would think it would be much more difficult to replace a fallen member of Parliament.

As with the death of Zarqawi, this doesn't signal the end of the war. But we're better off that it happened than if it didn't.

More interesting to me is whether this story is true or not.

First off: that members of the Iraqi "government" who have links to the insurgency does not surprise me one bit....if they didn't, I would be dumbstruck. After all chaos or not both sides need the other to function...the politicos need some sort of arrangement with the insurgency or they would'nt be able to function and visa versa.

Now all that being said, if this story is true, why would it be released? You would think that, that type of info would be priceless and held close to the chest as it were. So to release it has to have some sort of motivation....and if it is not true....the same question remains....why?

Originally posted by grover
After all chaos or not both sides need the other to function...the politicos need some sort of arrangement with the insurgency or they would'nt be able to function and visa versa.

Except that Zarqawi was not part of the insurgency. He was a terrorist, pure and simple.

Now all that being said, if this story is true, why would it be released? You would think that, that type of info would be priceless and held close to the chest as it were.

I can see an argument both ways, both for holding the info, and for not holding the info. If there was any suspicion that his cell phone had been recovered, then it loses it's value, since the info on it would have had to be assumed to have been compromised.