BAGHDAD — Cryptic messages posted on Internet sites reporting that militant leader Abu Musab Zarqawi had been wounded raise questions about the future of a factionalized Iraqi insurgency driven in part by the power of his personality and mercurial strategy against U.S.-led forces.
Sometimes pictured as thin and willowy and other times as pudgy and bearded, Zarqawi is the face of the insurgent movement. If website postings are correct in suggesting that Zarqawi has suffered a bullet wound to a lung, the rebels could lose their fiercest voice in attempting to defeat Washington's designs for a new Iraq.
U.S. military officials say that Zarqawi's passing would not break the insurgency but could trigger a leadership struggle between Al Qaeda-backed foreign fighters on one side and Iraqi Sunni Muslims and others loyal to Saddam Hussein on the other. These groups reportedly are suspicious of each other, and uncertainty about a new leader could deepen dissension while U.S. and Iraqi forces increase their raids on militant strongholds in Baghdad and western Iraq.
"It is difficult to find leaders like Zarqawi," said Mohammed Askari, an Iraqi military analyst. The absence of such a marquee name could hurt the insurgency's recruiting and fundraising abilities, he added.
"Zarqawi is daring, elusive. He has an ability for maneuvering, evading risks and has this talent for sending effective messages to the public.... Who will come after him?"
The loss of the Jordanian militant as the principal leader of a sometimes splintered, mainly Iraqi network would not mean that the movement "will crumble and cease to exist," Brig. Gen. Carter Ham said this week at a Pentagon briefing. "The organization has proven to be somewhat resilient."
Names of possible successors who follow the thinking of Al Qaeda and other militant organizations include Khalid Shami, a Syrian; Abdel Rahmaan, an Iraqi; and Abu Hifs Qurani, believed to be either a Saudi or a Yemeni.
The Qurani clan is known for producing fighters for Islamic holy war in Afghanistan and across the Middle East. One Al Qaeda-linked website this week indicated that Qurani had been named temporary leader in Zarqawi's absence. The same site later cast doubt on that information. Neither report could be independently verified.
