Enemy #1

Zarqawi releases a recruitment video showing the deaths he has caused:

The tape contains many chilling scenes. When the chairman of the U.S. appointed Iraqi Governing Council, Izzedine Salam, then the country's highest Iraqi official, was assassinated last month in a car bomb Zarqawi quickly claimed credit. Now he shows the act, in graphic footage shot from a parked car: A convoy of white SUVs disappears down a Baghdad street, followed a moment later by a ball of flame and explosion so intense the windscreen through which the cameraman films cracks before your eyes.

When a suicide car bomber intercepted a convoy of security personnel for General Electric in the heart of Baghdad on June 14 Zarqawi's information unit was there, ready and waiting. The three-vehicle convoy enters the screen and is followed down a crowded little street. As the lens zooms in the vehicles erupt in a blistering ball of flame. Three bystanders are seen turning their backs from the blast, attempting to cover their heads. In contrast to other videos of insurgent attacks, the cameraman does not flee. Instead he holds his position and zooms in on the burning suicide vehicle and the flaming SUVs. Survivors can be seen moving from the vehicles and attempting to take cover.

Each episode of this grim "Best Of" the militant group's attacks over the last year is accompanied by professional-style editing, graphics and camera work. Explanations are given of each operation, the names of the suicide bombers, and the targeting justification. Apologies are given in Arabic screen titles for not showing all the available footage, citing technical problems and operational considerations.

We must take this guy out as quickly as we can and by any means available.