Zarqawi Taunts U.S. in Video

Over the past several months, reports of dissension and realignment within the insurgency have swirled through the Arab press and jihadi online forums. Zarqawi's name, and that of his group, al-Qaeda in Iraq, have largely disappeared from the Web sites where he long claimed credit for attacks on U.S. forces and propounded extremist doctrine.

His lowered profile began with the Jan. 15 announcement that al-Qaeda in Iraq and five other Sunni insurgent groups had formed a coalition called the Mujaheddin Shura Council (the Arabic word shura connotes consultation among decision makers). Since then, all attack claims by the groups have been issued by the coalition's "military wing."

The council adopted a new insignia, an image of hands reaching up to jointly clasp the staff of a waving green flag with Arabic script reading: "There is no God but God. Mohammed is the Prophet of God." The insignia was superimposed in the corner of yesterday's video, and Zarqawi himself made reference to the coalition, describing it "like an umbrella of all the mujaheddin in Iraq. They all stretch their hands and stand on the same line."

Although the coalition publicly invited all insurgent groups to join, several prominent groups -- including Ansar al-Sunnah, the 1920 Revolution Brigades and the Islamic Army in Iraq, were noticeably absent from its ranks. One statement circulated on the Internet, allegedly signed by these groups and others, claimed they had formed their own coalition to strengthen their position in Iraq's western Anbar province, a Sunni stronghold, and were ending their cooperation with al-Qaeda.

The import of Zarqawi's lowered profile, the formation of the council and the refusal of prominent members of the insurgency to join it have been the subject of much debate among counterterrorist analysts within the Bush administration, the U.S. military and private organizations that monitor his pronouncements.

Some have seen it as evidence that Zarqawi and al-Qaeda are retreating in the face of their failure to stop the democratic progress in Iraq or alternatively that Zarqawi -- who has been criticized in the past by al-Qaeda for brutal tactics that alienate the Muslim population -- had been demoted as the head of his own organization.

Commentary on al-Arabiya television and newspapers including the pan-Arab al-Hayat and the Palestinian al-Watan Voice have cited sources confirming Zarqawi's diminished role. The son of Abdullah Azzam, bin Laden's onetime mentor, emerged early this month to declare that Zarqawi had been stripped of his political role and relegated to military operations by the "high command" of the Iraqi resistance.

Al-Quds al-Arabi, a London-based Arab nationalist daily, reported that Jordan-based Hudayf Azzam had been "commissioned" by the resistance to convey a new image and "to show that the resistance controls al-Zarqawi and his group, and not the other way around."

U.S. counterterrorism analysts, however, have dismissed such conclusions as wishful and dangerous thinking. They have warned the changes could portend an operational division of insurgent groups in Iraq, with Zarqawi and those most closely allied with al-Qaeda shifting their focus to neighboring countries, particularly Jordan, while the rest continue to wage war against the United States and the new Iraqi government. Still others have ruefully acknowledged that three years into the Iraq war, little is known for certain about the internal workings of the insurgency.

Penetrating its shadowy organization has long been among the most vexing problems for U.S. intelligence and military forces in Iraq. How it is defined has significant political implications in this country. The Bush administration's efforts to tie the Iraq conflict to the larger war against global terrorism have long emphasized a leading role for Zarqawi, al-Qaeda and the "foreign fighters" it says slip over the border from Syria.

"We're still looking at this intensely to see how it shakes out," a senior administration official said of the reports from Iraq before the emergence of yesterday's video. "It's an important development and one we need to look at. But at the end of the day Zarqawi is still going to be a major player."

Correspondents Craig Whitlock in Berlin and Nelson Hernandez in Baghdad and researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.