Secret Task Force Hunting Zarqawi
May 25, 2004 — -- The secretive Task Force 121, charged with finding Osama bin Laden, is now actively hunting for suspected terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as well, intelligence sources tell ABC News.
ABC News has learned the Office of Counterterrorism at the State Department is going to recommend that the reward for his capture be increased from $10 million to $25 million — the same amount offered for bin Laden.
U.S. officials believe that bin Laden is still the greatest threat to the United States, but say they are now convinced that Zarqawi has global capability to match anyone's. U.S. intelligence officials say they have tracked Zarqawi cells operating not only in Iraq, but in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Turkey, Kuwait, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"He is foreign fighter enemy No. 1," said one official.
The closest the United States has come to capturing Zarqawi was last month, when, through both technical means and informants, intelligence analysts determined he was in Fallujah, the heart of the resistance in Iraq.
But Zarqawi escaped, showing up in Baghdad two weeks later in a most spectacular fashion. He appeared on tape via the Internet, officials said, carrying out the brutal beheading of American civilian Nicholas Berg.
The National Security Agency compared the voice on the tape to previous voice recordings that determined that it was indeed Zarqawi's. Making the tape of Berg was a risky move on Zarqawi's part, but many in the intelligence community believe it was a major power play.
"It was designed to catapult Zarqawi into the front ranks of those adversaries of the United States that are seen as the most consequential. He is learning from the best — from bin Laden," said Bruce Hoffman, acting director of the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy.
Intelligence officials have already tied Zarqawi to dozens of attacks worldwide, including the al Qaeda-linked suicide attacks in Istanbul, last year's bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, as well as attacks on the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad.
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