Dispatches from the Danger Zone: The Grieving Widow

The US media made a whole lot out of Abu Musab Zarqawi's wife saying he was sold out by Al Qaeda.  Poor baby.  You'll recall he was killed in Iraq by Americans on June 7th. He was the Jordanian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.  He was also a braggart, a former street thug and sex criminal - a rapist - and a vicious murderer.

His wife is called 'Um Mohammed' (meaning the mother of a son named Mohammed.  Fathers are commonly called 'Abu' as in 'Abu Mazen' meaning the father of Mazen).  So, Um Mohammed told an Italian newspaper reporter, in an interview in Geneva, Switzerland where she has been staying recently, that Al Qaeda "reached agreement with US Intelligence and betrayed her husband because he was becoming too powerful."

No explanation was offered as to who she specifically meant by 'Al Qaeda' but not likely it was Osama Bin Laden.  More likely it was one of Zarqawi's running dogs in Iraq who ratted him out for the huge reward offered - 25 million US dollars.

But Um Mohammed had the sense of her husband's relationship with the global leader of Al Qaeda right. It is very true that Bin Laden didn’t like Zarqawi.  He thought he was too divisive in his hatred of Shiites. Bin Laden's mother with whom he is close (aren't weird guys like Osama always close to their moms) is a Shia, an Alewite from Syria.

The interviewer in the Italian paper didn't seem sure of exactly who Mrs. Zarqawi is, though he said he believed she was the first wife.  Zarqawi did have two. 

He married number one, his first cousin, a Jordanian, in 1988.  She is now about 40 and they had four kids together. (One of those kids is named Mohammed.)

Then Zarqawi married wife number two, a Jordanian Palestinian, a younger woman with whom he had another child, a son.

Both women are known to have been in Iraq with him.

Swiss authorities should arrest wife number one, Um Mohammed, as a war criminal and do the same to number two if they locate her.  These are the people who sent the suicide bombers, the husband and wife, into the hotel wedding party in Baghdad, remember, and killed all those revelers?  One of the suicide killers was Zarqawi's father-in-law, Um Mohammed's father.

What hasn’t been mentioned much was that Zarqawi had the phone numbers of some senior high ranking Iraqi officials stored in his cell phone.

Authorities found the numbers after Zarqawi was killed and ran them down.  They were for phones assigned to some ministry officials and members of parliament.