BAGHDAD, Iraq – An armed vigilante group threatened on Tuesday to kill Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is believed to be responsible for a string of car bombings, kidnappings, beheadings and other attacks on coalition forces and Iraqis alike.
The emergence of the vigilante group potentially brings a new element into the Iraqi insurgency, highlighting internal opposition to al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian believed to have links to al-Qaida.
The video was sent to Al-Arabiya television by a previously unknown group, which called itself the Salvation Movement. It was in the style of those put out by anti-U.S. insurgents: a group of gunmen, faces hidden behind scarves, toting automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers in front of an Iraqi flag.
“We tell Zarqawi, the criminal, that he has to go out of Iraq immediately, he and his followers,” one gunman said. He railed that “innocent people were killed” by al-Zarqawi’s action.
“What is his religion? Is it Islam, religion of peace, that allows him to do the explosions on a holy day in a holy city, or to car-bomb police stations or a commercial street to kill thousands of innocents? What religion is that allows him and his followers to kidnap and slaughter foreign workers without any guilt? Who is he to threaten (Prime Minister Iyad) Allawi and kill our religious and patriotic personnel?”
U.S. officials have called al-Zarqawi the most wanted man in Iraq and have offered a $25 million reward for him.
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