CAIRO, Egypt - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's new video marks a shift by the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq toward a less radical image, one that might appeal to the Iraqi insurgency more than the beheadings for which he's become notorious, analysts said Wednesday.

	This is an image made from video originally posted Tuesday, April 25, 2006 on the Internet showing al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In the rare video, al-Zarqawi accused the West and the United States of waging a 'crusader' war against Islam but said Muslim holy warriors were standing firm. [AP]

The video released Tuesday, the first by al-Zarqawi that shows his face, features scenes of the black-garbed terrorist firing a gun and hunkered over a map plotting strategy. The Sunni Muslim extremist, 39, looks youthful and healthy in the springtime desert.

"It's a departure from the past. There's no strident anti-Shiite rhetoric and no beheadings," said Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director at the International Crisis Group, based in Amman, Jordan.

"He wants to be a `good' insurgent in a more moderate sense ¡ª an Iraqi sense ¡ª to appeal to Iraqis," Hiltermann said.

Iraqi government officials, however, condemned the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi as a foreigner determined to destroy Iraq. They said his promise to launch more attacks may have been in response to the appointment of a new prime minister, a major step toward a unity government including Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

"I believe that al-Zarqawi was caught off guard by the new government taking shape because it will be very strong one representing all Iraqis," said Sheik Khalid al-Attiyah, the Iraqi parliament's new first deputy speaker. He added that al-Zarqawi is determined "to inflame a civil war."

"He feels very worried that he's losing popularity inside Iraq," Maysoon al-Damluji, a member of the Iraqi parliament, told CNN. "This is a change of strategy. He feels that he needs to make himself visible more in order to get support."

The video comes at a time when Arabs have voiced distaste for Islamic extremists' tactics such as beheadings and bombings, including deadly hotel attacks in Jordan that caused widespread protests.

"He is often seen as more extreme than even (Osama) bin Laden," said Jeremy Binnie, an analyst with Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center in London. "In reality their ideology isn't that different."

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