Al-Zarqawi spares Sadrists? Sadrists would 'tear him limb from limb'

db: Some people are beginning to wake up to the possibility that the one-legged superhuman killer Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - who appears like magic wherever he is needed - may not be all that he is made out to be by US and UK propagandists. As Mike Whitney wrote yesterday "In more than two years since the United States initiated hostilities against Iraq, there has never been a positive identification of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Never.

"That doesn't mean that he doesn't exist; it simply suggests that prudent people will challenge the official version until his whereabouts and significance in the conflict can be verified."

Keeping that sensible advise firmly in the front of your mind, you cannot help but remain unconvinced by the so-called Zarqawi statement that appeared at adnki yesterday:

The latest message says, "In a previous audio message issued by Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, he declared total war on Shiites for the massacre perpetrated by the Shiite government of Ibraham al-Jafaari against the Sunnis of Tel Afar. Despite this, it should be stressed that in that speech, al-Zarqawi specified that 'all Shiites who condemn the crimes committed against the Sunnis at Tel Afar and who don't support the occupation will be excluded from attacks by the mujahadeen'. Those groups therefore include three Shiite movements: those of al-Sadr, al-Khalisi and al-Hussani."

Juan Cole at Informed Comment picked up on this and quoted Riyadh al-Nuri, a spokesman for Muqtada al-Sadr as saying that Zarqawi's exemption of the Sadrists from attack was an attempt to sow dissension in the ranks of the Shiites. Al-Nuri said that the Sadrists consider al-Qaeda and Zarqawi "their most diehard enemies" and that "were he to fall into the hands of the Sadrists they would tear him limb from limb."