WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence officials who released a letter purporting to be from an al Qaeda leader to Iraq insurgency leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi this week said on Friday they could not account for a passage that has raised doubts about the document's authenticity.
The July 9 dated letter, which U.S. officials say was written by al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, appears near its close to urge the Iraq insurgent leader to send greetings to himself if visiting the Iraqi city of Falluja.
"My greetings to all the loved ones and please give me news of Karem and the rest of the folks I know," says an unedited English translation posted at www.dni.gov, the office Web site of U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte.
A spokesman for Negroponte, who is the U.S. director of national intelligence, or DNI, acknowledged the greetings passage was confusing but said the intelligence community was confident the letter was addressed to Zarqawi by Zawahri.
"We don't know what to make of it (the passage). It's unclear," the Negroponte spokesman said.
The greetings passage gained little noticed from initial news coverage of the letter's release, which came days before this weekend's constitutional referendum in Iraq.
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