"God ordered us to attack the infidels by all means ... even if armed infidels and unintended victims — women and children — are killed together," the speaker said. "The priority is for jihad so anything that slows down jihad should be overcome."
The defense of the deadly attacks could be aimed at bolstering the ranks of the insurgency with Sunni Arabs who may have initially shied away over concerns about innocent civilians being killed. The speaker claimed that top religious scholars have repeatedly sanctioned suicide bombings.
If you are looking for strategy in our terms you won't find it.
Zarqawi says that "the priority is for jihad." This latest wave of bombings is simply about fighting. He wants to kill Americans and Iraq is simply his battlefield. If Iraqis get in the way to try and slow that down, well then they must be killed and overcome. Whether they are men or women, adult or children, civilian or military. And if they are Shia or Kurd that's just a bonus in his view.
The Sunni Baathists hope that the chaos Zarqawi sows will create an environment in which they can regain power but they also risk that the majority Shias and Kurds will go postal on the Sunnis if pushed too hard.
If the Sunnis were smart, they would take the opportunity offered by alQaeda's campaign of death to joint the Iraqi government and make the fight against the jihadis a national resistance.
