Al Qaeda memo shows frustration

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Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq are failing to entice Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims into a bloody civil war and are discouraged by America's resolve to stick it out in Baghdad, U.S. officials said yesterday.

"The Iraqi people have demonstrated time after time that they are unwilling to participate in any of these activities by and large," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director for coalition operations in Iraq. "They are looking forward to a free, united and sovereign Iraq."

Gen. Kimmitt's remarks came after the New York Times reported on a memo seized in a coalition raid and believed to have been written by Abu Musab Zarqawi. A Palestinian traveling on a Jordanian passport, Zarqawi is described as al Qaeda's top man in Iraq, directing attacks on Americans and Iraqis.

Before the war, he operated out of the Ansar al-Islam terror training camp in northern Iraq and ran similar camps in Afghanistan.

In the unsigned memo, the writer expresses disappointment on two crucial issues: The Americans refuse to give up and leave Iraq despite taking daily casualties; and the majority Shi'ites and once-powerful Sunni sects so far have not engaged in a civil war that would destabilize the emerging government.

"We can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like what has happened in so many lands of jihad," the memo states, according to the Times. "Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases. ... By God, this is suffocation."

The memo states that Zarqawi's strategy is to continue to kill Shi'ites in hopes they will vent their anger against Sunnis still loyal to captured Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

"We have to get to the zero hour in order to openly begin controlling the land by night, and after that by day, God willing," the writer says. "The zero hour needs to be at least four months before the new government gets in place."

The United States has set a July 1 timetable for turning over power to an elected interim government.