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Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

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Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (Arabic: ابو مصعب الزرقاوي) (possibly born on October 20, 1966) is a shadowy Jordanian national who is wanted as an international terrorist. He is from the town of Zarqa, a poor and crime-ridden industrial town 30 minutes northeast of Amman. One alias, Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh (Arabic: أحمد فاضل النزال الخلايله), is believed to be his real name.[1] [2] [3] He opposes the involvement of western society in the Muslim world.

In personal accounts Zarqawi is usually described as somber and unintelligent, with a violent temper. He is alleged by some to be a senior associate of Osama bin Laden in Al Qaida and head of the Iraq-based Ansar al-Islam group. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell went so far as to describe Zarqawi as a "Qaeda operative." Others describe Zarqawi's operation as a rival to al Qaeda with similar goals, and senior U.S. military officials have described him as a "separate jihadist." In either case he has participated in violent action against the United States, which is offering a $25 million reward for his capture, the same as the amount offered for Osama bin Laden before March 2004. An emerging view is that al-Zarqawi now holds significantly more power than bin Laden, possibly because bin Laden is dead or can otherwise no longer communicate with his followers.

He is often said to be the head of an insurgent network operating in Iraq, in the absence of firm evidence. There are also reports that he was arrested by the Iranian government, and together with several other high-level al-Qaeda suspects, would have been handed to the U.S. government in a deal that fell through.[4] There are other rumors that he is dead; no sightings of Zarqawi have been confirmed since 2002. Recently the conservative newspaper Daily Telegraph reported that the assertion that Zarqawi was the head of terrorist network in Iraq was a myth. According to a US military intelligence source, this alleged myth is the result of faulty intelligence, obtained through the payment of substantial sums of money to unreliable and dishonest sources. The faulty intelligence however suited US government political goals according to the intelligence officer. [5]

Background

A member of Jordan's Beni Hassan tribe, Zarqawi grew up in poverty and squalor. At the age of 17 he dropped out of school and began drinking heavily. According to vague Jordanian intelligence reports, Zarqawi was jailed briefly in the 1980s for sexual assault.

In 1989, Zarqawi traveled to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but the Soviets were already leaving by the time he arrived. Instead, he became a reporter for an Islamist newsletter. There are reports that in the mid-1990s, al-Zarqawi travelled to Europe and started the al-Tawhid terrorist organization, a group dedicated to killing Jews and installing an Islamic regime in Jordan.[6][7]

But other reports claim he was arrested in Jordan in 1992, and spent seven years in a Jordanian prison for conspiring to overthrow the monarchy and establish an Islamic caliphate. In prison, Zarqawi reportedly became a feared leader among inmates. Upon his release, in 1999, al-Zarqawi was reportedly involved in an attempt to blow up the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, Jordan, whose customers are frequently Israeli and American tourists. He fled Jordan and travelled to Peshawar, Pakistan, near the border to Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, al-Zarqawi established a terrorist training camp near Herat, which competed with al-Qaeda for recruits. According to the Bush administration, the training camp specialized in poisons and explosives.

Sometime in 2001, al-Zarqawi was arrested again in Jordan, but was soon released. Later, he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to death for plotting the attack on the Radisson SAS Hotel.[8]

Reported September 11 connection and the invasion of Iraq

Some U.S. officials have claimed that he and Mohammed Atta, the lead September 11 attacker, met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Prague five months before Sept. 11. These claims were used to support the claim that Iraq was a threat to the US and given as a justification of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The New York Times reported on October 21, 2002 that Atta did not meet with Iraqi Intelligence in Prague. This was later independently confirmed in the 9/11 Commission report.

In Colin Powell's famed speech to the United Nations urging war against Iraq, Zarqawi was named as a principal reason for the need for war. Many parts of the speech have since been discredited, and Powell mistakenly referred to Zarqawi as a Palestinian, but Powell stands by his statements.

After September 11

After the September 11 attacks, Zarqawi first travelled to Afghanistan and was reportedly wounded in an attack. He moved to Iran to organize al-Tawhid, his former terrorist organization. Zarqawi then settled in the lawless, mostly-Kurdish regions of northern Iraq, where he joined the Islamist Ansar al-Islam group that fought against Kurdish-nationalist forces in the region. He has reportedly become a leader in the group, although his leadership has not been established. His followers claimed he was killed in a US bombing raid in the north of Iraq [9].

Assassination of Laurence Foley

Laurence Foley was a senior U.S. diplomat and worked for the US Agency for International Development. On October 28, 2002, he was assassinated outside his home in Amman, Jordan. Three suspects confessed under harsh Jordanian interrogation that they had been armed and paid by Zarqawi to perform the assassination. US officials believe that planning and execution of the Foley assassination was led by members of Afghan Jihad, the International Mujaheddin Movement, and al-Qaida. One of the leaders, Salim Sa'd Salim Bin-Suwayd, was paid over $50,000 for his work in planning assassinations in Jordan against U.S., Israeli, and Jordanian government officials. Suwayd was arrested in Jordan for the murder of Foley. [10] Zarqawi was again sentenced in absentia in Jordan; this time, his sentence was death.

The beheading of Nicholas Berg

In May 2004, a videotape was released showing American Nick Berg, who had been abducted in Iraq weeks earlier, being beheaded by a group of five men. The speaker on the tape, wielding the knife that killed Nick Berg identified himself as al-Zarqawi and claimed responsibility for planning the operation. He stated that the killing was retaliation for US abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison (see Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal); CIA analysis of the voice concluded that it was indeed al-Zarqawi's [11]. The CIA analysis failed to quell doubts about the validity of the claim because, among other reasons, the man wears a mask in the video and does not resemble Zarqawi in other superficial ways. (see: Nick Berg conspiracy theories and the following Sydney Morning Herald article)

Other incidents

  • Zarqawi is believed by the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq to have written an intercepted letter to the al-Qaeda leadership in February, 2004 on the progress of the Iraqi jihad. Many others do not believe that Zarqawi wrote the letter. (See Zarqawi Letter.)
  • U.S. officials believe that al-Zarqawi trained others in the use of poison for possible attacks in Europe, ran a terrorist haven in northern Iraq, organized the bombing of a Baghdad hotel
  • Jordan accuses Al-Zarqawi of plotting to release a chemical cloud in Amman. Men were arrested in Amman who purportedly were planning to release the cloud.
  • According to suspects arrested in Turkey, Zarqawi sent them to Istanbul to organize an attack on a NATO summit there on June 28 or June 29.
  • On July 11, 2004, Zarqawi claimed responsibility for a July 8 mortar attack in Samarra, Iraq. Five American soldiers and one Iraqi soldier were killed.
  • U.S. officials blame Zarqawi for over 700 killings in Iraq during the occupation, mostly from bombings.
  • Zarqawi has also claimed responsibility for the Canal Hotel bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Iraq on August 19, 2003. This attack killed 22 people including the UN Secretary-general's special Iraqi envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Missing leg

Zarqawi was formerly reported to have lost a leg in a US missile strike, although the U.S. military now believes Zarqawi still has both legs. The nature of this report has changed a great deal over time. Early in 2002, there were unverified reports from Northern Alliance members that Zarqawi had been killed by a missile attack in Afghanistan. Many news sources repeated the claim.

Later, Kurdish groups claimed that Zarqawi had not died in the missile strike, but had been severely injured, and went to Baghdad in 2002 to have his leg amputated. On October 7, 2002, the day before Congress voted to give the President permission to go to war against Iraq, President Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio that repeated this claim as fact. This was the Bush's chief example of how Saddam supposedly aided al-Qaida. Powell repeated this claim in his famous speech to the UN, urging a resolution for war, and it soon became "common knowledge" that Zarqawi had a wooden leg.

When the video of the beheading of Nick Berg was released, this gave credence to the claim that Zarqawi was alive and active. The man identified as Zarqawi did not have leg problems in the video. The U.S. has since reported that claims of Zarqawi's wooden leg were disinformation.

In March of 2004, an insurgent group in Iraq issued a statement that said Zarqawi had been killed back in 2002. The statement said that he was unable to escape the missile attack because of his wooden leg. No evidence was provided.

External links

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