WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (AFP) - US President George W. Bush has made the capture of the most wanted man in Iraq, Islamic militant Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, an increasingly important part of his policy as he seeks reelection on November 2.
The Republican president recently attacked Senator John Kerry over the Democratic presidential candidate's criticism of his foreign policy.
"Here the difference between my opponent and me is very clear," Bush said at a campaign event on Monday.
"Senator Kerry believes that fighting Zarqawi and other terrorists in Iraq is a diversion from the war on terror," he said. "I believe that fighting and defeating these killers in Iraq is a central commitment in the war on terror."
In reality, Kerry stated that Bush's decision to invade Iraq was a "diversion from Al-Qaeda and from Osama bin Laden."
On Sunday, Zarqawi's Tawhid wal Jihad group apparently pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network on an Islamic website. A US intelligence official told The Los Angeles Times authorities consider the message credible.
Bush administration officials, in arguing for the war in Iraq last year, had linked Zarqawi -- believed to be between 37 and 38 years old -- to Al-Qaeda and Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. But earlier this month, a new CIA assessment found no conclusive evidence that Saddam gave safe haven to Zarqawi before the US invasion.
The Jordanian-born extremist, like bin Laden, has a 25-million-dollar bounty on his head, a sum symbolizing the importance accorded to a man whom US officials consider public enemy number one in Iraq.
Zarqawi, whose real name is Fadel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, has claimed responsibility for a series of bloody car bombings and hostage takings in Iraq. Two Americans taken hostage by his group were beheaded in a grizzly fashion, sending a chill through Washington.
On Friday, the United States designated Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) as a "foreign terrorist organization."
The US military has mounted airstrikes in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, nearly every night in recent weeks in bombardments targeting Zarqawi and his followers. US and Iraqi forces believe Fallujah has provided a refuge for Zarqawi and his group.
While Zarqawi's group has admitted having contact with Al-Qaeda, the web message in which it purportedly pledges allegiance to bin Laden's network would represent the first time it officially links itself to Al-Qaeda.
Most intelligence experts have said that Zarqawi was not operating under Al-Qaeda's umbrella and may have been a rival of bin Laden's.
"He shares many of the objectives of Al-Qaeda and bin Laden," said Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA official and a security consultant.
But according to Melvin Goodman, a national security expert at the Center for International Policy, bin Laden and Zarqawi do not share the same strategy.
"Zarqawi's tactics are something that bin Laden has repudiated because Zarqawi will use extreme violence against anyone and I think even bin Laden is more discriminate than that," Goodman said. "I think Zarqawi is just totally nihilistic."
He said US intelligence services "exaggerated (Zarqawi's) strength and his capabilities."
"Obviously, he is capable of applying tremendous violence with no limitation, but I don't think his organization is as big as what the intelligence community says it is," Goodman said.