AMMAN, 24 May 2006 — A suspected member of the Al-Qaeda group in Iraq confessed on Jordanian television yesterday to murdering a Jordanian driver in Iraq and abducting two Moroccan Embassy employees last year. The man, who identified himself as Iraqi national Ziad Khalaf Al-Karbuli, said during the 15-minute tape that he shot to death Khalid Dassuki “with my personal revolver” in September inside Iraq. “I fired two shots at his head,” Karbuli said.
He also claimed responsibility for the abduction of the two Moroccans in October and said they were later handed over to the Al-Qaeda group in Iraq run by Jordanian-born Islamist fugitive Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Karbuli said the two Moroccans were in the company of two Iraqi Kurds and were all “taken to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.” But Karbuli said he never found out what happened to the Moroccans but was told that the two Kurds were later executed.
State television, quoting a security source, identified Karbuli as a customs employee on the Iraqi border and said he was arrested in a joint operation by the intelligence forces and army special forces after drawing him out of Iraq.
“Karbuli was an Al-Qaeda official in the region of Rutba (western Iraq) and used his job as a customs clearing employee on the Iraq border as a cover to carry out his crimes,” the source said. “A unit of the intelligence services, backed by a special forces brigade, pursued the murderer until they arrested him after drawing him out of Iraq,” the source added.
Jordanian authorities identified the suspect as “an important figure in the Al-Qaeda in Iraq organization led by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi” when they announced his arrest on Monday.
Karbuli also confessed during his interrogation by the Jordanian judicial authorities of having abducted an aide to a former Iraqi finance minister who was on his way from Jordan to Iraq, the security source was quoted as saying. According to the source, Karbuli also confessed that he killed four Iraqi national guards, television reported.
