Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Encyclopedia
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; October 30, 1966 – June 7, 2006), born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh was a Jordan
ian militant Islamist who ran a paramilitary
training camp in Afghanistan
. He became known after going to Iraq
and being responsible for a series of bombings, beheadings, and attacks during the Iraq War.
He formed al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in the 1990s, and led it until his death in June 2006. Zarqawi took responsibility, on several audio- and videotapes, for numerous acts of violence in Iraq including suicide bombings and hostage
executions. Zarqawi opposed the presence of US and Western military forces in the Islamic world, as well as the West's support for and the existence of Israel. In late 2004 he joined al-Qaeda, and pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden
. After this al-Tawhid wal-Jihad became known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq
(AQI), and al-Zarqawi was given the Al-Qaeda title, "Emir of Al Qaeda in the Country of Two Rivers".
In September 2005, he declared "all-out war" on Shia in Iraq after the Iraqi government offensive on insurgents in the Sunni town of Tal Afar
. He dispatched numerous suicide bombers throughout Iraq to attack American soldiers and areas with large concentrations of Shia militias. He is also responsible for the 2005 bombing
of three hotels in Amman
, Jordan. Zarqawi died in a targeted killing
on June 7, 2006, while attending a meeting in an isolated safehouse approximately 8 km (5 mi) north of Baqubah
. Two United States Air Force
F-16C
jets dropped two 500-pound (230 kg) guided bombs on the safehouse.
, located approximately 21 kilometres (13 mi) northeast of the capital Amman
. Born in a Palestinian and Jordanian family (including al-Khalayleh of the Beni Hassan
tribe), Zarqawi grew up in Zarqa
, where he was a street thug involved in as many as 37 incidents with police, while struggling with alcoholism
.
. Instead of fighting, he became a reporter for an Islamist
newsletter. There are reports that in the mid-1990s, Zarqawi traveled to Europe and started the al-Tawhid paramilitary organization, a group dedicated to installing an Islamic regime in Jordan.
Zarqawi was arrested in Jordan in 1996, and spent five years in a Jordanian prison for conspiring to overthrow the monarchy
to establish an Islamic caliph
ate. He was arrested for possessing explosives. While in prison, he attempted to draft his cell mates into joining him to overthrow the rulers of Jordan. "You were either with them or against them. There was no gray area," a former prison mate told Time magazine in 2004. Zarqawi became a feared leader among inmates there. In prison he met and befriended Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein
, who later published a book on Zarqawi.
Upon his release from prison in 1999, Zarqawi was involved in an attempt to blow up the Radisson
Hotel in Amman, where many Israeli and American tourists lodged. He fled Jordan and traveled to Peshawar
, Pakistan
, near the Afghanistan border. In Afghanistan, Zarqawi established a militant training camp near Herat, near the Iran
ian border. The training camp specialized in poison
s and explosives. Zarqawi met with Saif al-Adel
and Osama bin Laden
in Afghanistan, and explained he intended to set up his own training camp in Herat for Jordanian militants.
Jordanian and European intelligence agencies discovered that Zarqawi formed the group Jund al-Sham
in 1999 with $200,000 of start up money from Osama bin Laden. The group originally consisted of 150 members. It was infiltrated by members of Jordanian intelligence, and scattered before Operation Enduring Freedom. However, in March 2005, a fragment of the group carried out a bombing in Doha
, Qatar
. Sometime in 2001, Zarqawi was arrested in Jordan but was soon released. He was later convicted in absentia
and sentenced to death
for plotting the attack on the Radisson SAS Hotel.
After the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan
, Zarqawi returned to help repel the assault, where he suffered cracked ribs following the collapse of a bombed house.
The Bush Administration
used the possibility of Zarqawi's presence in Iraq before March 2003 to justify the invasion of Iraq
; recently declassified Pentagon
documents reveal that there was no substantial link between al-Qaeda
and Saddam Hussein
.
Zarqawi was the most wanted man in Jordan and Iraq, having participated in or masterminded a number of violent actions against Iraqi, Jordanian and United States targets. The US government offered a $25m reward for information leading to his capture, the same amount offered for the capture of bin Laden before March 2004. On October 15, 2004, the U.S. State Department
added Zarqawi and the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad group to its "list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations"
and ordered a freeze on any assets that the group might have in the United States. On February 24, 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice
's FBI
also added al-Zarqawi to the "Seeking Information – War on Terrorism"
list, the first time that he had ever been added to any of the FBI's three major "wanted" lists
.
, near the city of Baquba, Iraq. Also killed were his spiritual adviser Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi and four others, including his wife and their child. He died from internal bleeding at 7:04/05pm, 50–55 minutes after the air strike, of injuries sustained in the bomb blasts. FBI tests later confirmed Zarqawi's identity. On June 15, 2006, it was confirmed that Egyptian Islamic Jihad militant Abu Ayyub al-Masri
would succeed Zarqawi as head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq
and the Iraqi insurgency
.
Al-Zarqawi's third wife was an Iraqi who might have perished in the airstrike with her husband.
SAS Hotel in Amman in 1999 because it was frequented by many Israeli and American tourists. He failed in this attempt and fled to Afghanistan and then entered Iraq via Iran after the overthrow of the Taliban in late 2001. From Iraq he started his terrorist campaign by hiring men to kill Laurence Foley
who was a senior U.S. diplomat working for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Jordan. On October 28, 2002, Foley was assassinated
outside his home in Amman. Under interrogation
by Jordanian authorities, three suspects confessed that they had been armed and paid by Zarqawi to perform the assassination. U.S. officials believe that the planning and execution of the Foley assassination was led by members of Afghan Jihad, the International Mujaheddin Movement, and al-Qaeda
. One of the leaders, Salim Sa'd Salim Bin-Suwayd, was paid over $27,858 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. Zarqawi was again sentenced in absentia in Jordan; this time, as before, his sentence was death.
Zarqawi also helped plan a series of deadly bomb attacks in Casablanca
, Morocco
in 2003. U.S. officials believe that Zarqawi trained others in the use of poison
(ricin
) for possible attacks in Europe. Zarqawi had also planned to attack a NATO summit in June 2004. 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 of 2004. On April 26, 2004, Jordanian authorities announced they had broken up an al-Qaeda plot to use chemical weapons in Amman. Among the targets were the U.S. Embassy, the Jordanian prime minister's office and the headquarters of Jordanian intelligence. In a series of raids, the Jordanians seized 20 tons of chemicals, including blistering agents and nerve gas. and numerous explosives. Also seized were three trucks equipped with specially modified plows, apparently designed to crash through security barricades. Jordanian state television aired a videotape of four men admitting they were part of the plot. One of the conspirators, Azmi Al-Jayousi, said that he was acting on the orders of Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi. On February 15, 2006, Jordan's High Court of Security sentenced nine men, including al-Zarqawi, to death for their involvement in the plot. Zarqawi was convicted of planning the entire attack from his post in Iraq, funding the operation with nearly $120,000, and sending a group of Jordanians into Jordan to execute the plan. Eight of the defendants were accused of belonging to a previously unknown group, "Kata'eb al-Tawhid" or Battalions of Monotheism, which was headed by al-Zarqawi and linked to al Qaeda. Zarqawi was believed to have masterminded the 2005 Amman bombings
that killed sixty people in three hotels, including several officials of the Palestinian Authority and members of a Chinese defense delegation.
ish northern Iraq. According to a March 2003 British intelligence report, Zarqawi had set up "sleeper cells" in Baghdad
before the Iraq war. The report stated "Reporting since (February) suggests that senior al Qaeda associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has established sleeper cells in Baghdad, to be activated during a U.S. occupation of the city...These cells apparently intend to attack U.S. targets using car bombs and other weapons. (It is also possible that they have received [chemical and biological] materials from terrorists in the [Kurdish Autonomous Zone]),...al Qaeda-associated terrorists continued to arrive in Baghdad in early March."
In May 2004, a video appeared on an alleged al-Qaeda website showing a group of five men, their faces covered with keffiyeh
or balaclavas, beheading American civilian Nicholas Berg, who had been abducted and taken hostage in Iraq weeks earlier. The CIA claimed that the speaker on the tape wielding the knife that killed Berg was al-Zarqawi. The video opens with the title "Abu Musa'b al-Zarqawi slaughters an American." The speaker states that the murder was in retaliation for US abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison
(see Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal). Following the death of al-Zarqawi, CNN spoke with Nicholas's father and long-time anti-war activist Michael Berg
, who stated that al-Zarqawi's killing would lead to further vengeance and was not a cause for rejoicing.
Zarqawi is also believed to have personally beheaded another American civilian, Olin Eugene Armstrong, in September 2004.
United States officials implicated Zarqawi in over 700 killings in Iraq during the invasion, mostly from bombings. Since March 2004, that number rose to the thousands. According to the United States State Department, Zarqawi was responsible for the Canal Hotel bombing
of the United Nations Headquarters in Iraq on August 19, 2003. This attack killed twenty-two people, including the United Nations secretary general's special Iraqi envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello
. Zarqawi's biggest alleged atrocities in Iraq included the attacks on the Shia shrines in Karbala and Baghdad in March 2004, which killed over 180 people, and the car bomb attacks in Najaf and Karbala in December 2004, which claimed over 60 lives.
Zarqawi is believed by the former 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
." However, al-Qaeda denied they had written the letter. The U.S. military believes Zarqawi organized the February 2006 attack on the Al Askari Mosque in Samarra
, in an attempt to trigger sectarian violence
between Sunnis
and Shi'ites
in Iraq.
In a January 2005 internet
recording, Zarqawi condemned democracy
as "the big American lie" and said participants in Iraq's January 30 election
were enemies of Islam
. Zarqawi stated "We have declared a bitter war against democracy and all those who seek to enact it...Democracy is also based on the right to choose your religion [and that is] against the rule of Allah."
On April 25, 2006, a video appearing to show Zarqawi surfaced. In the tape, the man says holy warriors are fighting on despite a three-year "crusade". U.S. experts told the BBC
they believed the recording was genuine. One part of the recording shows a man – who bears a strong resemblance to previous pictures of Zarqawi – sitting on the floor and addressing a group of masked men with an automatic rifle at his side. "Your mujahideen sons were able to confront the most ferocious of crusader campaigns on a Muslim state," the man says. Addressing U.S. President George W. Bush, he says: "Why don't you tell people that your soldiers are committing suicide, taking drugs and hallucination pills to help them sleep?" "By Allah," he says, "your dreams will be defeated by our blood and by our bodies. What is coming is even worse." The speaker in the video also reproaches the U.S. for its "arrogance and insolence" in rejecting a truce offered by "our prince and leader," Osama Bin Laden. The United States Army aired an unedited tape of Zarqawi in May 2006 highlighting the fact that he did not know how to clear a stoppage on the stolen M249 Squad Automatic Weapon he was using.
, Zarqawi appeared on a U.S. list of most-wanted al-Qaeda terrorists still at large in early 2002.
According to the Washington Post and some other sources, he formally swore loyalty (Bay'ah
) to bin Laden in October 2004 and was in turn appointed bin Laden's deputy. Zarqawi then changed the name of his Monotheism and Jihad network to "al-Qaeda in Iraq," (Tanzim al-Qaeda wa'l-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn)
Zarqawi's group continued to receive funding from Osama bin Laden and pursued "a largely distinct, if occasionally overlapping agenda," according to The Washington Post
. Counterterrorism experts told the Washington Post that while Zarqawi accepted al-Qaeda's financial help to set up a training camp in Afghanistan he ran it independently and while bin Laden was planning September 11, Zarqawi was busy developing a plot to topple the Jordanian monarchy and attack Israel.
The Washington Post also reported that German Intelligence wiretaps found that in the fall of 2001 that Zarqawi grew angry when his members were raising money in Germany for al-Qaeda's local leadership. "If something should come from their side, simply do not accept it," Zarqawi told one of his followers, according to a recorded conversation that was played at a trial of four alleged Zarqawi operatives in Düsseldorf
.
In 2001, bin Laden repeatedly summoned al-Zarqawi from Herat to Kandahar, asking that he take an oath of allegiance to him. al-Zarqawi refused; he didn't want to take sides against the Northern Alliance, and doubted the fervor of bin Laden and the Taliban. When the United States launched its air war inside Afghanistan, on October 7, 2001, al-Zarqawi joined forces with al-Qaeda and the Taliban for the first time. He and his Jund al-Sham fought in and around Herat and Kandahar. When Zarqawi finally did take the oath in October 2004, it was after eight months of negotiations.
When Shadi Abdellah was arrested in 2002, he cooperated with authorities, but suggested that al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden
were not as closely linked as previously believed, in large part because al-Zarqawi disagreed with many of the sentiments put forward by Mahfouz Ould al-Walid for al-Qaeda.
In April 2007, former Director of Central Intelligence
George Tenet
released his memoir
titled At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
. In the book he reveals that in July 2001, an associate of Zarqawi had been detained and, during interrogations, linked Zarqawi with al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah
. Tenet also wrote in his book that Thirwat Shihata and Yussef Dardiri, "assessed by a senior al-Qa'ida detainee to be among the Egyptian Islamic Jihad's best operational planners," arrived in Baghdad in May 2002 and were engaged in "sending recruits to train in Zarqawi's camps."
, Zarqawi returned to Iraq, where he met with Bin Laden's military chief, Saif al-Adel (Muhammad Ibrahim Makawi), who asked him to coordinate the entry of al-Qaeda operatives into Iraq through Syria. Zarqawi readily agreed and by the fall of 2003 a steady flow of Arab Islamists were infiltrating Iraq via Syria. Although many of these foreign fighters were not members of Tawhid, they became more or less dependent on Zarqawi's local contacts once they entered the unfamiliar country. Moreover, given Tawhid's superior intelligence gathering capability, it made little sense for non-Tawhid operatives to plan and carry out attacks without coordinating with Zarqawi's lieutenants. Consequentially, Zarqawi came to be recognized as the regional "emir" of Islamist terrorists in Iraq without having sworn fealty to bin Laden.
U.S. intelligence intercepted a January 2004 letter from Zarqawi to al Qaeda and American officials made it public in February 2004. In the letter to bin Laden, Zarqawi wrote:
In October 2004, a message on an Islamic Web site posted in the name of the spokesman of Zarqawi's group announced that Zarqawi had sworn his network's allegiance to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. The message stated that:
On December 27, 2004, Al Jazeera
broadcast an audiotape of bin Laden calling Zarqawi "the prince of al Qaeda in Iraq" and asked "all our organization brethren to listen to him and obey him in his good deeds." Since that time, Zarqawi had referred to his own organization as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad
.
In May 2007, President George W. Bush
declassified a U.S. intelligence report that stated that bin Laden had enlisted Zarqawi to plan strikes inside the U.S., and warned that in January 2005 bin Laden had assigned Zarqawi to organize a cell inside Iraq that would be used to plan and carry out attacks against the U.S. "Bin Laden tasked the terrorist Zarqawi ... with forming a cell to conduct terrorist attacks outside of Iraq," Bush stated in a commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy. "Bin Laden emphasized that America should be Zarqawi's No.1 priority."
, had written to Zarqawi, bluntly warning that Muslim public opinion was turning against him. According to Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, "A number of al-Qaeda figures were uncomfortable with the tactics he was using in Iraq... It was quite clear with Zarqawi that as far as the al-Qaeda core leadership goes, they couldn't control the way in which their network affiliates operated."
conceded that Zarqawi’s ties to Al Qaeda may have been much more ambiguous—and that he may have been more of a rival than a lieutenant to bin Laden. Zarqawi "may very well not have sworn allegiance to [bin Laden]," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing. "Maybe he disagrees with him on something, maybe because he wants to be ‘The Man’ himself and maybe for a reason that’s not known to me." Rumsfeld added that, "someone could legitimately say he’s not Al Qaeda."
According to the Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence released in September 2006, "in April 2003 the CIA learned from a senior al-Qa'ida detainee that al-Zarqawi had rebuffed several efforts by bin Ladin to recruit him. The detainee claimed that al-Zarqawi had religious differences with bin Ladin and disagreed with bin Laden's singular focus against the United States. The CIA assessed in April 2003 that al-Zarqawi planned and directed independent terrorist operations without al Qaeda direction, but assessed that he 'most likely contracts out his network's services to al Qaeda in return for material and financial assistance from key al Qaeda facilitators.'"(page 90)
In the April 2006 National Intelligence Estimate
, declassified in September 2006, it asserts that "Al-Qa’ida, now merged with Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi’s network, is exploiting the situation in Iraq to attract new recruits and donors and to maintain its leadership role."
On February 5, 2003, then Secretary of State Colin Powell
addressed the U.N. Security Council on the issue of Iraq. Regarding Zarqawi, Powell stated that:
Zarqawi recuperated in Baghdad after being wounded while fighting along with Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. According to the 2004 Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq
, "A foreign government service asserted that the IIS (Iraqi Intelligence Service) knew where al-Zarqawi was located despite Baghdad’s claims that it could not find him."page 337 The Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence also stated "As indicated in Iraqi Support for Terrorism, the Iraqi regime was, at a minimum, aware of al-Zarqawi’s presence in Baghdad in 2002 because a foreign government service passed information regarding his whereabouts to Iraqi authorities in June 2002. Despite Iraq’s pervasive security apparatus and its receipt of detailed information about al-Zarqawi's possible location, however, Iraqi Intelligence told the foreign government service it could not locate al-Zarqawi."page 338
This claim was reiterated by Jordanian King Abdullah II
in an interview with Al-Hayat. Abdullah revealed that Saddam Hussein
had rejected repeated requests from Jordan to hand over al-Zarqawi. According to Abdullah, "We had information that he entered Iraq from a neighboring country, where he lived and what he was doing. We informed the Iraqi authorities about all this detailed information we had, but they didn’t respond." Abdullah told the Al-Hayat that Jordan exerted "big efforts" with Saddam’s government to extradite al-Zarqawi, but added that "our demands that the former regime hand him over were in vain.
One high-level Jordanian intelligence official told the Atlantic Monthly that al-Zarqawi, after leaving Afghanistan in December 2001, frequently traveled to the Sunni Triangle of Iraq where he expanded his network, recruited and trained new fighters, and set up bases, safe houses, and military training camps. He said, however, "We know Zarqawi better than he knows himself. And I can assure you that he never had any links to Saddam."
Counterterrorism scholar Loretta Napoleoni
quotes former Jordanian parliamentarian Layth Shubaylat, a radical Islamist
opposition figure, who was personally acquainted with both Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein:
that the report was a mix of new information and a look at some older information and did not make any final judgments or come to any definitive conclusions. "To suggest the case is closed on this would not be correct," the official said." A US official familiar with the report told Knight-Ridder that "what is indisputable is that Zarqawi was operating out of Baghdad and was involved in a lot of bad activities." Another U.S. official summarized the report as such: "The evidence is that Saddam never gave Zarqawi anything."
According to the 2004 Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence, "The CIA provided four reports detailing the debriefings of Abu Zubaydah
, a captured senior coordinator for al-Qaida responsible for training and recruiting. Abu Zubaydah said that he was not aware of a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida. He also said, however, that any relationship would be highly compartmented and went on to name al-Qaida members who he thought had good contacts with the Iraqis. For instance, Abu Zubaydah indicated that he had heard that an important al-Qaida associate, Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, and others had good relationships with Iraqi Intelligence."
A classified memo obtained by Stephen F. Hayes
, prepared by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith in response to questions posed by the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence, stated the following regarding al-Zarqawi:
The memo was a collection of raw intelligence reports and drew no conclusions. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed to Newsweek
that the "reports [in the memo] were old, uncorroborated and came from sources of unknown if not dubious credibility."
The 2006 Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence concluded that Zarqawi was not a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda: "Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi." The report also cited the debriefing of a "high-ranking Iraqi official" by the FBI. The official stated that a foreign government requested in October 2002 that the IIS locate five individuals suspected of involvement in the murder of Laurence Foley, which lead to the arrest of Abu Yasim Sayyem in early 2003. The official told the FBI that evidence of Sayyem's ties to Zarqawi was compelling, and thus, he was "shocked" when Sayemm was ordered released by Saddam. The official stated it "was ludicrous to think that the IIS had any involvement with al-Qaeda or Zarqawi," and suggested Saddam let Sayyem go because he "would participate in striking U.S. forces when they entered Iraq." In 2005, according to the Senate report, the CIA amended its 2004 report to conclude that "the regime did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates."page 91–92 An intelligence official familiar with the CIA assessment also told Michael Isikoff of Newsweek magazine that the current draft of the report says that while Zarqawi did likely receive medical treatment in Baghdad in 2002, the report concludes that "most evidence suggests Saddam Hussein did not provide Zarqawi safe haven before the war,...[but] it also recognizes that there are still unanswered questions and gaps in knowledge about the relationship."
The Army's Foreign Military Studies Office website translated a letter dated August 17, 2002 from an Iraqi intelligence official. The letter is part of the Operation Iraqi Freedom documents
. The letter asks agents in the country to be on the lookout for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and another unnamed man. Pictures of both men were attached.
The letter issued the following 3 directives:
The documents also contain responses to this request. One response, dated August 2002, states "Upon verifying the information through our sources and friends in the field as well as office (3), we found no information to confirm the presence of the above mentioned in our area of operation. Please review, we suggest circulating the contents of this message." Another response, also dated August 2002, states "After closely examining the data and through our sources and friends in (SATTS: U R A) square, and in Al-Qa'im immigration office, and in Office (3), none of the mentioned individuals are documented to be present in our area of jurisdiction."
According to ABC News
, "The letter seems to be coming from or going to Trebil
, a town on the Iraqi-Jordanian border. Follow up on the presence of those subjects is ordered, as well as a comparison of their pictures with those of Jordanian subjects living in Iraq. (This may be referring to pictures of Abu Musaab al Zarqawi and another man on pages 4–6.)"
In his book At the Center of the Storm, George Tenet
writes:
According to Tenet, while Zarqawi did find a safe haven in Iraq and did supervise camps in northeastern Iraq run by Ansar al-Islam
, "the intelligence did not show any Iraqi authority, direction, or control over any of the many specific terrorist acts carried out by al-Qa'ida."
designed to promote the image of a demon
ic enemy figure to help justify continued U.S. military operations in Iraq, perhaps with the tacit support of jihad
i elements who wished to use him as a propaganda tool or as a distraction. In one report, the conservative
newspaper Daily Telegraph described the claim that Zarqawi was the head of the "terrorist network" in Iraq as a "myth". This report cited an unnamed U.S. military intelligence source to the effect that the Zarqawi leadership "myth" was initially caused by faulty intelligence, but was later accepted because it suited U.S. government political goals. One Sunni insurgent leader claimed on December 11 that "Zarqawi is an American, Israel
i and Iran
ian agent who is trying to keep our country unstable so that the Sunnis will keep facing occupation."
On February 18, 2006, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr
made similar charges:
On April 10, 2006, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. military conducted a major propaganda offensive designed to exaggerate Zarqawi's role in the Iraqi insurgency. Gen. Mark Kimmitt
says of the propaganda campaign that there "was no attempt to manipulate the press." In an internal briefing, Kimmitt is quoted as stating, "The Zarqawi PSYOP Program is the most successful information campaign to date." The main goal of the propaganda campaign seems to have been to exacerbate a rift between insurgent forces in Iraq, but intelligence experts worried that it had actually enhanced Zarqawi's influence. Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and then was one of the top officers handling Iraq intelligence issues on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
, warned an Army meeting in 2004 that "Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will — made him more important than he really is, in some ways." While Pentagon spokespersons state unequivocally that PSYOPs may not be used to influence American citizens, there is little question that the information disseminated through the program has found its way into American media sources. The Washington Post also notes that "One briefing slide about U.S. "strategic communications" in Iraq, prepared for Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, describes the "home audience" as one of six major targets of the American side of the war."
On July 4, 2006, the US Ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad
, in an interview with the BBC
, said: "In terms of the level of violence, it (the death of al-Zarqawi) has not had any impact at this point... the level of violence is still quite high." But Khalilzad maintained his view that the killing had though encouraged some insurgent groups to "reach out" and join government reconcialiation talks, he believed that previously these groups were intimidated by Zarqawi's presence.
On June 8, 2006, on the BBC's Question Time
program, the Respect Party MP George Galloway
referred to al-Zarqawi as "a 'Boogeyman', built up by the Americans to try and perpetrate the lie that the resistance in Iraq are by foreigners, and that the mass of the Iraqis are with the American and British occupation". Jeffrey Gettleman
of the New York Times supported this saying "several people who knew Mr. Zarqawi well, including former cellmates, voiced doubts about his ability to be an insurgent leader, or the leader of anything". In the July/August 2006 issue of The Atlantic, Mary Anne Weaver doubted that the figure who beheads Nicholas Berg in the execution video was in fact al-Zarqawi.
On August 21, 2006, Jill Carroll
, a journalist for the Christian Science Monitor, published part 6 of her story detailing her captivity in Iraq. In it, she describes how one of her captors, who identified himself as Abdullah Rashid and leader of the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq, conveyed to her that "The Americans were constantly saying that the mujahideen
in Iraq were led by foreigners...So, the Iraqi insurgents went to Zarqawi and insisted that an Iraqi be put in charge." She continued by stating: "But as I saw in coming weeks, Zarqawi remained the insurgents' hero, and the most influential member of their council, whatever Nour/Rashid's position. And it seemed to me, based on snatches of conversations, that two cell leaders under him – Abu Rasha and Abu Ahmed – might also be on the council. At various times, I heard my captors discussing changes in their plans because of directives from the council and Zarqawi."
, the Pentagon
had pushed to "take out" Zarqawi's operation at least three times prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq
, but had been vetoed by the National Security Council
. The council reportedly made its decision in an effort to convince other countries to join the US in a coalition against Iraq. "People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of pre-emption against terrorists," said former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.
In May 2006, former CIA official Michael Scheuer
, who headed the CIA's bin Laden unit for six years before resigning in 2004, corroborated this. Paraphrasing his remarks, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
stated Scheuer claimed that "the United States deliberately turned down several opportunities to kill terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the lead-up to the Iraq war." ABC added that "a plan to destroy Zarqawi's training camp in Kurdistan was abandoned for diplomatic reasons." Scheuer explained that "the reasons the intelligence service got for not shooting Zarqawi was simply that the President and the National Security Council decided it was more important not to give the Europeans the impression we were gunslingers" in an effort to win support for ousting Saddam Hussein
.
This claim was also corroborated by CENTCOM's Deputy Commander, Lieutenant General
Michael DeLong, in an interview with PBS
on February 14, 2006. DeLong, however, claims that the reasons for abandoning the opportunity to take out Zarqawi's camp was that the Pentagon feared that an attack would contaminate the area with chemical weapon
materials: "We almost took them out three months before the Iraq war started. We almost took that thing, but we were so concerned that the chemical cloud from there could devastate the region that we chose to take them by land rather than by smart weapons."
in 2002 to have his leg amputated. On October 7, 2002, the day before Congress
voted to give President George W. Bush authorization to invade Iraq, Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati
, Ohio
, that repeated as fact the claim that he had sought medical treatment in Baghdad. This was one of several of President Bush's examples of ways Saddam Hussein had aided, funded, and harbored al-Qaeda. Powell repeated this claim in his February 2003 speech to the UN, urging a resolution for war, and it soon became "common knowledge" that Zarqawi had a prosthetic leg.
In 2004, Newsweek reported that some "senior US military officials in Baghdad" had come to believe that he still had his original legs. Knight Ridder
later reported that the leg amputation was something "officials now acknowledge was incorrect."
When the video of the Berg beheading was released in 2004, credence was given to the claim that Zarqawi was alive and active. The man identified as Zarqawi in the video did not appear to have a prosthetic leg. Videos of Zarqawi aired in 2006 that clearly showed him with both legs intact. When Zarqawi's body was autopsied, "X-rays also showed a fracture of his right lower leg."
In March 2004, an insurgent group in Iraq issued a statement saying that Zarqawi had been killed in April 2003. The statement said that he was unable to escape the missile attack because of his prosthetic leg. His followers claimed he was killed in a US bombing raid in the north of Iraq. The claim that Zarqawi had been killed in northern Iraq "at the beginning of the war," and that subsequent use of his name was a useful myth, was repeated in September 2005 by Sheikh Jawad Al-Khalessi, a Shiite imam
.
On May 24, 2005, it was reported on an Islamic website that a deputy would take command of Al-Qaeda while Zarqawi recovered from injuries sustained in an attack. Later that week the Iraqi government confirmed that Zarqawi had been wounded by US forces, although the battalion did not realize it at the time. The extent of his injuries is not known, although some radical Islamic websites called for prayers for his health. There are reports that a local hospital treated a man, suspected to be Zarqawi, with severe injuries. He was also said to have subsequently left Iraq for a neighbouring country, accompanied by two physicians. However, later that week the radical Islamic website retracted its report about his injuries and claimed that he was in fine health and was running the jihad operation.
In a September 16, 2005 article published by Le Monde
, Sheikh Jawad Al-Kalesi claimed that al-Zarqawi was killed in the Kurdish northern region of Iraq at the beginning of the US-led war on the country as he was meeting with members of the Ansar al-Islam
group affiliated to al-Qaeda. Al-Kalesi also claimed "His family in Jordan even held a ceremony after his death." He also claimed that "Zarqawi has been used as a ploy by the United States, as an excuse to continue the occupation" and saying, "It was a pretext so they don't leave Iraq."
On November 20, 2005, some news sources reported that Zarqawi may have been killed in a coalition assault on a house in Mosul
; five of those in the house were killed in the assault while the other three died through using 'suicide belts' of explosives. United States and British soldiers searched the remains, with U.S. forces using DNA
samples to identify the dead. However, none of those remains belonged to him.
to blow up the Jordanian mission in Baghdad in December. "Do you know what has happened to Zarqawi and where he is?" an Iraqi investigator asked Mr. Shaiyah. He answered, "I don't know, but I heard from some of my mujahadeen brothers that Iraqi police had captured Zarqawi in Fallujah
." Mr. Shaiyah says he then heard that the police let the terrorist go because they had failed to recognize him. U.S. officials called the report "plausible" but refused to confirm it.
Zarqawi was killed in a targeted killing
on June 7, 2006, while attending a meeting in an isolated safehouse approximately 8 km (5 mi) north of Baqubah
. At 14:15 GMT two United States Air Force
F-16C jets identified the house and the lead jet dropped two 500-pound (230 kg) guided bombs, a laser-guided GBU-12 and GPS
-guided GBU-38 on the building located at 33°48′02.83"N 44°30′48.58"E. Six others—three male and three female individuals—were also reported killed. Among those killed were one of his wives and their child.
The story of the successful hunt for Zarqawi is told in the book How to Break a Terrorist
by Matthew Alexander (not a real name). Alexander and his team of interrogators convinced one of Zarqawi's associates to betray him.
The joint task force (Task Force 145) had been tracking him for some time, and although there were some close calls, he had eluded them on many occasions. United States intelligence officials then received tips from Iraqi senior leaders from Zarqawi's network that he and some of his associates were in the Baqubah area. The safehouse itself was watched for over six weeks before Zarqawi was observed entering the building by operators from Task Force 145. Jordanian intelligence reportedly helped to identify his location. The area was subsequently secured by Iraqi security forces, who were the first ground forces to arrive.
On June 8, 2006, coalition forces confirmed that Zarqawi's body was identified by facial recognition, fingerprinting, known scars and tattoos. They also announced the death of one of his key lieutenants, spiritual adviser Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman
.
Initially, the US military reported that Zarqawi was killed directly in the attack. However, according to a statement made the following day by Major General William Caldwell
of the U.S. Army, Zarqawi survived for a short time after the bombing, and after being placed on a stretcher, attempted to move and was restrained, after which he died from his injuries. An Iraqi man, who claims to have arrived on the scene a few moments after the attack, said he saw U.S. troops beating up the badly wounded but still alive Zarqawi. In contradiction, Caldwell asserted that when U.S. troops found Zarqawi barely alive they tried to provide him with medical help, rejecting the allegations that he was beaten based on an autopsy performed. The account of the Iraqi witness has not been verified. All others in the house died immediately in the blasts. On June 12, 2006, it was reported that an autopsy performed by the U.S. military revealed that the cause of death to Zarqawi was a blast injury to the lungs, but he took nearly an hour to die.
The U.S. government distributed an image of Zarqawi's corpse as part of the press pack associated with the press conference. The release of the image has been criticised for being in questionable taste, and for inadvertently creating an iconic image of Zarqawi that would be used to rally his supporters.
United States President George W. Bush stated that through his every action Zarqawi sought to defeat America and its coalition partners by turning Iraq into a safe haven for al-Qaeda. Bush also stated, "Now Zarqawi has met his end and this violent man will never murder again."
Zarqawi's brother-in-law has since claimed that he was a martyr
even though the family renounced Zarqawi and his actions in the aftermath of the Amman triple suicide bombing
that killed at least 60 people. The opinion of Iraqis on his death is mixed; some believe that it will promote peace between the warring factions, while others are convinced that his death will provoke his followers to a massive retaliation
and cause more bombings and deaths in Iraq.
Abu Abdulrahman al-Iraqi, the deputy of al-Zarqawi (who may be the individual called "Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman" mentioned above, meaning he was not present as the bombing happened), released a statement to Islamist websites indicating that al-Qaeda in Iraq also confirmed Zarqawi's death: "We herald the martyrdom of our mujahed
Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq ... and we stress that this is an honor to our nation." In the statement, al-Iraqi vowed to continue the jihad in Iraq.
On June 16, 2006, Abu Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi, the head of the Mujahideen Shura Council, which groups five Iraqi insurgent
organizations including al-Qaida in Iraq, released an audio tape statement in which he described the death of al-Zarqawi as a "great loss." He continued by stating that al-Zarqawi "will remain a symbol for all the mujahideen, who will take strength from his steadfastness." Al-Baghdadi is believed to be a former officer in Saddam's army, or its elite Republican Guard
, who has worked closely with al-Zarqawi since the overthrow of Saddam's regime
in April 2003.
Counterterrorism officials have said that al-Zarqawi had become a key part of al-Qaeda's marketing campaign and that al-Zarqawi served as a "worldwide jihadist rallying point and a fundraising icon." Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, called al-Zarqawi "The terrorist celeb, if you will, ... It is like selling for any organization. They are selling the success of Zarqawi in eluding capture in Iraq."
On June 23, 2006, Al-Jazeera aired a video in which Ayman al-Zawahiri
, al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, states that Zarqawi was "a soldier, a hero, an imam
and the prince of martyrs, [and his death] has defined the struggle between the crusaders and Islam in Iraq."
On June 30, 2006, Osama bin Laden released an audio recording in which he stated, "Our Islamic nation was surprised to find its knight, the lion of jihad, the man of determination and will, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a shameful American raid. We pray to Allah to bless him and accept him among the martyrs as he had hoped for." Bin Laden also defended al-Zarqawi, saying he had "clear instructions" to focus on U.S.-led forces in Iraq but also "for those who ... stood to fight on the side of the crusaders against the Muslims, then he should kill them whoever they are, regardless of their sect or tribe." Shortly after, he released another audio tape in which he stated, "Our brothers, the mujahedeen in the al-Qaeda organization, have chosen the dear brother Abu Hamza al-Muhajer as their leader to succeed the Amir Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. I advise him to focus his fighting on the Americans and everyone who supports them and allies himself with them in their war on the people of Islam and Iraq."
on June 9 treated the betrayal by at least one fellow al-Qaeda member as fact, stating that an individual close to Zarqawi disclosed the identity and location of Sheik Abd al-Rahman to Jordanian and American intelligence. Non-stop surveillance of Abd al-Rahman quickly led to Zarqawi.
The Associated Press
quotes an unnamed Jordanian official as saying that the effort to find Zarqawi was successful partly due to information that Jordan obtained one month beforehand from a captured Zarqawi al-Qaeda operative named Ziad Khalaf Raja al-Karbouly
.
, an Iraqi spokesman said the US$25 million reward "will be honored" (although this need not mean that any money will actually be paid, as the terms of the reward would indeed be "honored" by having no payee if no one qualifies). Khalilzad, in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer
, had stated the bounty would not be paid because the decisive information leading to Zarqawi's whereabouts had been supplied by an al-Qaeda in Iraq operative whose own complicity in violent acts would disqualify him from receiving payment.
Rep. Mark Kirk
, a Republican
of Illinois who drafted the legislation specifying the Zarqawi reward, was quoted as saying contemporaneously that the Bush Administration planned to pay "some rewards" for Zarqawi. "I don't have the specifics," he stated. "The administration is now working out who will get it and how much. As their appropriator who funds them, I asked them to let me know if they need more money to run the rewards program now that they are paying this out."
as the successor to Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
After Zarqawi's demise in early June 2006 there has been little or no immediately identifiable change in terms of the level of violence and attacks against U.S. and allied troops. In the immediate aftermath insurgency attacks averaged 90 a day, apparently some of the highest on record. Four months after Zarqawi's death, it is estimated that 374 coalition soldiers and 10,355 Iraqis have been killed. Several insurgency groups and heads of Sunni Muslim tribes also formed a coalition called the Mujahideen Shura Council.
By late 2007, violent and indiscriminate attacks directed by AQI against Iraqi civilians had severely damaged their image and caused the loss of support among the population, isolating the group. In a major blow to AQI, thousands of former Sunni militants that previously fought along with the group started to actively fight AQI and also work with the American and Iraqi forces starting with the creation of the Anbar Awakening Council because of its Anbar origins. The group spread to all Sunni cities and communities and some Shite areas and adopted the broader name Sons of Iraq. The Sons of Iraq was instrumental in giving tips to coalition forces about weapons caches and militants resulting in the destruction of over 2,500 weapons caches and over 800 militants being killed or captured. In addition, the 30,000 strong U.S. troop surge supplied military planners with more manpower for operations targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq, The Mujahadeen Shura Council, Ansar Al-Sunnah and other terrorist groups. The resulting events leading to dozens of high-level AQI leaders being captured or killed. Al-Qaeda seemed to have lost its foothold in Iraq and appeared to be severely crippled due to its lack of vast weapons caches, leaders, safe havens, and Iraqis willing to support them. Accordingly, the bounty issued for Abu Ayyub-al-Masri AKA Abu Hamza al-Muhajer was eventually cut from $5 million down to a mere $100,000 in April 2008.
On January 8, 2008, and January 28, 2008, Iraqi and U.S. forces launched Operation Phantom Phoenix
and the Ninawa campaign
AKA the Mosul Campaign killing and capturing over 4,600 militants and locating and destroying over 3,000 weapons caches in those 2 campaigns. Also effectively leaving AQI with 1 last major insurgent stronghold Diyala. On July 29, 2008, Iraqi, U.S. and Sons Of Iraq forces launched Operation Augurs of Prosperity in the Diyala province and surrounding areas to clear AQI out of its last stronghold. 2 operations were already launched before in Diyala with mixed results and this campaign was expected to face fierce resistance. The rustling operation left over 500 weapons caches destroyed and 5 militants killed; 483 militants were captured due to the lack of resistance from the insurgent forces. 24 high level AQI terrorists were killed or captured in the campaign.
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
ian militant Islamist who ran a paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
training camp in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
. He became known after going to Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
and being responsible for a series of bombings, beheadings, and attacks during the Iraq War.
He formed al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in the 1990s, and led it until his death in June 2006. Zarqawi took responsibility, on several audio- and videotapes, for numerous acts of violence in Iraq including suicide bombings and hostage
Hostage
A hostage is a person or entity which is held by a captor. The original definition meant that this was handed over by one of two belligerent parties to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement, or as a preventive measure against certain acts of war...
executions. Zarqawi opposed the presence of US and Western military forces in the Islamic world, as well as the West's support for and the existence of Israel. In late 2004 he joined al-Qaeda, and pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
. After this al-Tawhid wal-Jihad became known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a popular name for the Iraqi division of the international Salafi jihadi militant organization al-Qaeda. It is recognized as a part of the greater Iraqi insurgency....
(AQI), and al-Zarqawi was given the Al-Qaeda title, "Emir of Al Qaeda in the Country of Two Rivers".
In September 2005, he declared "all-out war" on Shia in Iraq after the Iraqi government offensive on insurgents in the Sunni town of Tal Afar
Tal Afar
Tal Afar is a city and district in northwestern Iraq in the Ninawa Governorate located approximately 30 miles west of Mosul and 120 miles north west of Kirkuk.While no official census data exists, the city which had been...
. He dispatched numerous suicide bombers throughout Iraq to attack American soldiers and areas with large concentrations of Shia militias. He is also responsible for the 2005 bombing
2005 Amman bombings
The 2005 Amman bombings were a series of coordinated bomb attacks on three hotels in Amman, Jordan, on 9 November 2005. The attacks killed 60 people and injured 115 others. The explosions—at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Radisson SAS Hotel, and the Days Inn—started at around 20:50 local time at the...
of three hotels in Amman
Amman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
, Jordan. Zarqawi died in a targeted killing
Targeted killing
Targeted killing is the deliberate, specific targeting and killing, by a government or its agents, of a supposed terrorist or of a supposed "unlawful combatant" who is not in that government's custody...
on June 7, 2006, while attending a meeting in an isolated safehouse approximately 8 km (5 mi) north of Baqubah
Baqubah
Baqubah is the capital of Iraq's Diyala Governorate.The city is located some to the northeast of Baghdad, on the Diyala River. In 2003 it had an estimated population of some 467,900 people....
. Two United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
F-16C
F-16 Fighting Falcon
The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a multirole jet fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force . Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft. Over 4,400 aircraft have been built since...
jets dropped two 500-pound (230 kg) guided bombs on the safehouse.
Early life
Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh , is believed to have been al-Zarqawi's real name. "Abu Musab" literally translates to "Musab's father," while the surname "al-Zarqawi" translates as "one from Zarqa." Zarqawi was a native of the Jordanian city of ZarqaZarqa
Az-Zarqāʔ is a city in Jordan located to the northeast of Amman. With a population of more than one million 1000,000. It is the country's second largest city after Amman. Zarqa is the capital of Zarqa Governorate . Its name means "the blue one".- Overview :Zarqa is Jordan's industrial centre, home...
, located approximately 21 kilometres (13 mi) northeast of the capital Amman
Amman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
. Born in a Palestinian and Jordanian family (including al-Khalayleh of the Beni Hassan
Beni Hassan
Beni Ḥassān were a nomadic group of Arabian origin, one of the four sub-tribes of the Maqil Arabian tribes who emigrated in the 11th century to the Maghreb with the Bani Hilal and Banu Sulaym Arabs.. They originally lived with their Maqil relatives in the area between Tadla, Moulouiya River...
tribe), Zarqawi grew up in Zarqa
Zarqa
Az-Zarqāʔ is a city in Jordan located to the northeast of Amman. With a population of more than one million 1000,000. It is the country's second largest city after Amman. Zarqa is the capital of Zarqa Governorate . Its name means "the blue one".- Overview :Zarqa is Jordan's industrial centre, home...
, where he was a street thug involved in as many as 37 incidents with police, while struggling with alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
.
Terrorist
In 1989, Zarqawi traveled to Afghanistan to join the insurgency against the Soviet invasion, but the Soviets were already leaving by the time he arrived. There he met and befriended Osama bin LadenOsama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
. Instead of fighting, he became a reporter for an Islamist
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
newsletter. There are reports that in the mid-1990s, Zarqawi traveled to Europe and started the al-Tawhid paramilitary organization, a group dedicated to installing an Islamic regime in Jordan.
Zarqawi was arrested in Jordan in 1996, and spent five years in a Jordanian prison for conspiring to overthrow the monarchy
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
to establish an Islamic caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
ate. He was arrested for possessing explosives. While in prison, he attempted to draft his cell mates into joining him to overthrow the rulers of Jordan. "You were either with them or against them. There was no gray area," a former prison mate told Time magazine in 2004. Zarqawi became a feared leader among inmates there. In prison he met and befriended Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein
Fouad Hussein
Fouad Hussein is a Jordanian journalist and author of the 2005 Arabic language book Al-Zarqawi: The Second Generation of Al Qaeda. It is based on interviews with senior Islamic militants, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the late leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Saif al-Adel, a high ranking member...
, who later published a book on Zarqawi.
Upon his release from prison in 1999, Zarqawi was involved in an attempt to blow up the Radisson
Radisson Hotels
Radisson Hotels is one of the leading, full-service global hotel companies with more than 420 locations in 73 countries. The first Radisson Hotel was built in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1909, and was named after the 17th-century French explorer Pierre-Esprit Radisson...
Hotel in Amman, where many Israeli and American tourists lodged. He fled Jordan and traveled to Peshawar
Peshawar
Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, near the Afghanistan border. In Afghanistan, Zarqawi established a militant training camp near Herat, near the Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian border. The training camp specialized in poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
s and explosives. Zarqawi met with Saif al-Adel
Saif al-Adel
Saif al-Adel is an Egyptian explosives expert and a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda.Adel is under indictment for his part in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa...
and Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
in Afghanistan, and explained he intended to set up his own training camp in Herat for Jordanian militants.
Jordanian and European intelligence agencies discovered that Zarqawi formed the group Jund al-Sham
Jund al-Sham
Jund al-Sham is a terrorist group believed to have first appeared in Afghanistan in 1999, the group was established by Syrians, Palestinians and Lebanese with links to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who went on to found al-Qaida in Iraq and was subsequently killed by a US airstrike...
in 1999 with $200,000 of start up money from Osama bin Laden. The group originally consisted of 150 members. It was infiltrated by members of Jordanian intelligence, and scattered before Operation Enduring Freedom. However, in March 2005, a fragment of the group carried out a bombing in Doha
Doha
Doha is the capital city of the state of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf, it had a population of 998,651 in 2008, and is also one of the municipalities of Qatar...
, Qatar
Qatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
. Sometime in 2001, Zarqawi was arrested in Jordan but was soon released. He was later convicted in absentia
In absentia
In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...
and sentenced to death
Death Sentence
Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...
for plotting the attack on the Radisson SAS Hotel.
After the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
, Zarqawi returned to help repel the assault, where he suffered cracked ribs following the collapse of a bombed house.
The Bush Administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
used the possibility of Zarqawi's presence in Iraq before March 2003 to justify the invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
; recently declassified Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
documents reveal that there was no substantial link between al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
and Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
.
Zarqawi was the most wanted man in Jordan and Iraq, having participated in or masterminded a number of violent actions against Iraqi, Jordanian and United States targets. The US government offered a $25m reward for information leading to his capture, the same amount offered for the capture of bin Laden before March 2004. On October 15, 2004, the U.S. State Department
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
added Zarqawi and the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad group to its "list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations"
U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations
"Foreign Terrorist Organization" is a designation of non-United States-based organizations declared terrorist by the United States Secretary of State in accordance with section 219 of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act...
and ordered a freeze on any assets that the group might have in the United States. On February 24, 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
's FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
also added al-Zarqawi to the "Seeking Information – War on Terrorism"
FBI Seeking Information - War on Terrorism list
The FBI Seeking Information – War on Terrorism list is the third major "wanted" list to have been created by the United States Department of Justice's Federal Bureau of Investigation to be used as a primary tool for publicly identifying and tracking down suspected terrorists operating against...
list, the first time that he had ever been added to any of the FBI's three major "wanted" lists
FBI Most Wanted Terrorists
The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Most Wanted Terrorists is a list of fugitives who have been indicted by sitting Federal grand juries in the United States district courts, for alleged crimes of terrorism. The initial list was formed in late 2001 in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks...
.
Death
On June 7, 2006, Zarqawi was killed in an American air strike 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north of HibhibHibhib
Hibhib is a small village in northern Iraq, located , northwest of the town of Baquba. A previous leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi maintained a safehouse in the village. He was meeting with his spiritual advisor when the house was bombed by aircraft from...
, near the city of Baquba, Iraq. Also killed were his spiritual adviser Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi and four others, including his wife and their child. He died from internal bleeding at 7:04/05pm, 50–55 minutes after the air strike, of injuries sustained in the bomb blasts. FBI tests later confirmed Zarqawi's identity. On June 15, 2006, it was confirmed that Egyptian Islamic Jihad militant Abu Ayyub al-Masri
Abu Ayyub al-Masri
Abu Ayyub al-Masri , also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir and other aliases , was an active combattant of al-Qaeda and at least a senior aide to former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. When Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike on 7 June 2006, U.S...
would succeed Zarqawi as head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a popular name for the Iraqi division of the international Salafi jihadi militant organization al-Qaeda. It is recognized as a part of the greater Iraqi insurgency....
and the Iraqi insurgency
Iraqi insurgency
The Iraqi Resistance is composed of a diverse mix of militias, foreign fighters, all-Iraqi units or mixtures opposing the United States-led multinational force in Iraq and the post-2003 Iraqi government...
.
Personal life
Zarqawi is believed to have had three wives. His first wife, Umm Mohammed, was a Jordanian woman who was around 40 years old when Zarqawi died in June 2006. She lived in Zarqa, Jordan along with their four children, including a seven-year-old son, Musab. She had advised Zarqawi to leave Iraq temporarily and give orders to his deputies from outside the country. "He gave me an angry look and said, 'Me, me? I can't betray my religion and get out of Iraq. In the Name of Allah, I will not leave Iraq until victory or martyrdom'" she quoted al-Zarqawi as saying. Zarqawi's second wife, Isra, was 14 years old when he married her. She was the daughter of Yassin Jarrad, a Palestinian Islamic militant, who is blamed for the killing in 2003 of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, the Iraqi Shia leader. She bore him a child when she was 15 and was killed along with Zarqawi and their child, Abdul Rahman. Also killed was an unidentified five year old girl.Al-Zarqawi's third wife was an Iraqi who might have perished in the airstrike with her husband.
Attacks outside Iraq
Zarqawi's first major attempt at a terrorist attack occurred in 1999 after his release from prison. He was involved in an attempt to blow up the RadissonRadisson Hotels
Radisson Hotels is one of the leading, full-service global hotel companies with more than 420 locations in 73 countries. The first Radisson Hotel was built in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1909, and was named after the 17th-century French explorer Pierre-Esprit Radisson...
SAS Hotel in Amman in 1999 because it was frequented by many Israeli and American tourists. He failed in this attempt and fled to Afghanistan and then entered Iraq via Iran after the overthrow of the Taliban in late 2001. From Iraq he started his terrorist campaign by hiring men to kill Laurence Foley
Laurence Foley
Laurence Michael Foley, Sr. was an American diplomat assassinated outside his home in Amman, Jordan....
who was a senior U.S. diplomat working for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Jordan. On October 28, 2002, Foley was assassinated
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
outside his home in Amman. Under interrogation
Interrogation
Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...
by Jordanian authorities, three suspects confessed that they had been armed and paid by Zarqawi to perform the assassination. U.S. officials believe that the planning and execution of the Foley assassination was led by members of Afghan Jihad, the International Mujaheddin Movement, and al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
. One of the leaders, Salim Sa'd Salim Bin-Suwayd, was paid over $27,858 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. Zarqawi was again sentenced in absentia in Jordan; this time, as before, his sentence was death.
Zarqawi also helped plan a series of deadly bomb attacks in Casablanca
Casablanca
Casablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb. The 2004 census recorded a population of 2,949,805 in the prefecture...
, Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
in 2003. U.S. officials believe that Zarqawi trained others in the use of poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
(ricin
Ricin
Ricin , from the castor oil plant Ricinus communis, is a highly toxic, naturally occurring protein. A dose as small as a few grains of salt can kill an adult. The LD50 of ricin is around 22 micrograms per kilogram Ricin , from the castor oil plant Ricinus communis, is a highly toxic, naturally...
) for possible attacks in Europe. Zarqawi had also planned to attack a NATO summit in June 2004. According to suspects arrested in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, Zarqawi sent them to Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
to organize an attack on a NATO summit there on June 28 or June 29 of 2004. On April 26, 2004, Jordanian authorities announced they had broken up an al-Qaeda plot to use chemical weapons in Amman. Among the targets were the U.S. Embassy, the Jordanian prime minister's office and the headquarters of Jordanian intelligence. In a series of raids, the Jordanians seized 20 tons of chemicals, including blistering agents and nerve gas. and numerous explosives. Also seized were three trucks equipped with specially modified plows, apparently designed to crash through security barricades. Jordanian state television aired a videotape of four men admitting they were part of the plot. One of the conspirators, Azmi Al-Jayousi, said that he was acting on the orders of Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi. On February 15, 2006, Jordan's High Court of Security sentenced nine men, including al-Zarqawi, to death for their involvement in the plot. Zarqawi was convicted of planning the entire attack from his post in Iraq, funding the operation with nearly $120,000, and sending a group of Jordanians into Jordan to execute the plan. Eight of the defendants were accused of belonging to a previously unknown group, "Kata'eb al-Tawhid" or Battalions of Monotheism, which was headed by al-Zarqawi and linked to al Qaeda. Zarqawi was believed to have masterminded the 2005 Amman bombings
2005 Amman bombings
The 2005 Amman bombings were a series of coordinated bomb attacks on three hotels in Amman, Jordan, on 9 November 2005. The attacks killed 60 people and injured 115 others. The explosions—at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Radisson SAS Hotel, and the Days Inn—started at around 20:50 local time at the...
that killed sixty people in three hotels, including several officials of the Palestinian Authority and members of a Chinese defense delegation.
Attacks inside Iraq
The Weekly Standard reports that, before the invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi ran a "terrorist haven" in KurdKürd
Kürd or Kyurd or Kyurt may refer to:*Kürd Eldarbəyli, Azerbaijan*Kürd Mahrızlı, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Goychay, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Jalilabad, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Qabala, Azerbaijan*Qurdbayram, Azerbaijan...
ish northern Iraq. According to a March 2003 British intelligence report, Zarqawi had set up "sleeper cells" in Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
before the Iraq war. The report stated "Reporting since (February) suggests that senior al Qaeda associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has established sleeper cells in Baghdad, to be activated during a U.S. occupation of the city...These cells apparently intend to attack U.S. targets using car bombs and other weapons. (It is also possible that they have received [chemical and biological] materials from terrorists in the [Kurdish Autonomous Zone]),...al Qaeda-associated terrorists continued to arrive in Baghdad in early March."
In May 2004, a video appeared on an alleged al-Qaeda website showing a group of five men, their faces covered with keffiyeh
Keffiyeh
The keffiyeh/kufiya , also known as a ghutrah , ' , mashadah , shemagh or in Persian chafiye , Kurdish cemedanî and Turkish puşi, is a traditional Arab headdress fashioned from a square, usually cotton, scarf. It is typically worn by Arab men, as well as some Kurds...
or balaclavas, beheading American civilian Nicholas Berg, who had been abducted and taken hostage in Iraq weeks earlier. The CIA claimed that the speaker on the tape wielding the knife that killed Berg was al-Zarqawi. The video opens with the title "Abu Musa'b al-Zarqawi slaughters an American." The speaker states that the murder was in retaliation for US abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison
Abu Ghraib prison
The Baghdad Central Prison, formerly known as Abu Ghraib prison is in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi city 32 km west of Baghdad. It was built by British contractors in the 1950s....
(see Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal). Following the death of al-Zarqawi, CNN spoke with Nicholas's father and long-time anti-war activist Michael Berg
Michael Berg
Michael Berg is an American activist and politician who was a candidate for the United States House of Representatives in the state of Delaware on the Green Party ticket in the 2006 midterm elections...
, who stated that al-Zarqawi's killing would lead to further vengeance and was not a cause for rejoicing.
Zarqawi is also believed to have personally beheaded another American civilian, Olin Eugene Armstrong, in September 2004.
United States officials implicated Zarqawi in over 700 killings in Iraq during the invasion, mostly from bombings. Since March 2004, that number rose to the thousands. According to the United States State Department, Zarqawi was responsible for the Canal Hotel bombing
Canal Hotel Bombing
The Canal Hotel Bombing in Baghdad, Iraq, in the afternoon of August 19, 2003, killed at least 22 people, including the United Nations' Special Representative in Iraq Sérgio Vieira de Mello, and wounded over 100. The blast targeted the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq created just 5 days...
of the United Nations Headquarters in Iraq on August 19, 2003. This attack killed twenty-two people, including the United Nations secretary general's special Iraqi envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello
Sérgio Vieira de Mello
Sérgio Vieira de Mello was a Brazilian United Nations employee who worked for the UN for more than 34 years, earning respect and praise around the world for his efforts in the humanitarian and political programs of the UN...
. Zarqawi's biggest alleged atrocities in Iraq included the attacks on the Shia shrines in Karbala and Baghdad in March 2004, which killed over 180 people, and the car bomb attacks in Najaf and Karbala in December 2004, which claimed over 60 lives.
Zarqawi is believed by the former Coalition Provisional Authority
Coalition Provisional Authority
The Coalition Provisional Authority was established as a transitional government following the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies, members of the Multi-National Force – Iraq which was formed to oust the government of Saddam Hussein in 2003...
in Iraq to have written an intercepted letter to the al-Qaeda leadership in February 2004 on the progress of the "Iraqi jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
." However, al-Qaeda denied they had written the letter. The U.S. military believes Zarqawi organized the February 2006 attack on the Al Askari Mosque in Samarra
Samarra
Sāmarrā is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Salah ad-Din Governorate, north of Baghdad and, in 2003, had an estimated population of 348,700....
, in an attempt to trigger sectarian violence
Sectarian violence
Sectarian violence and/or sectarian strife is violence inspired by sectarianism, that is, between different sects of one particular mode of ideology or religion within a nation/community...
between Sunnis
Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam. Sunni Muslims are referred to in Arabic as ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah wa āl-Ǧamāʿah or ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah for short; in English, they are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis or Sunnites....
and Shi'ites
Shi'a Islam
Shia Islam is the second largest denomination of Islam. The followers of Shia Islam are called Shi'ites or Shias. "Shia" is the short form of the historic phrase Shīʻatu ʻAlī , meaning "followers of Ali", "faction of Ali", or "party of Ali".Like other schools of thought in Islam, Shia Islam is...
in Iraq.
In a January 2005 internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
recording, Zarqawi condemned democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
as "the big American lie" and said participants in Iraq's January 30 election
Iraqi legislative election, January 2005
Elections for the National Assembly of Iraq were held on January 30, 2005 in Iraq. The 275-member National Assembly was a parliament created under the Transitional Law during the Occupation of Iraq...
were enemies of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
. Zarqawi stated "We have declared a bitter war against democracy and all those who seek to enact it...Democracy is also based on the right to choose your religion [and that is] against the rule of Allah."
On April 25, 2006, a video appearing to show Zarqawi surfaced. In the tape, the man says holy warriors are fighting on despite a three-year "crusade". U.S. experts told the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
they believed the recording was genuine. One part of the recording shows a man – who bears a strong resemblance to previous pictures of Zarqawi – sitting on the floor and addressing a group of masked men with an automatic rifle at his side. "Your mujahideen sons were able to confront the most ferocious of crusader campaigns on a Muslim state," the man says. Addressing U.S. President George W. Bush, he says: "Why don't you tell people that your soldiers are committing suicide, taking drugs and hallucination pills to help them sleep?" "By Allah," he says, "your dreams will be defeated by our blood and by our bodies. What is coming is even worse." The speaker in the video also reproaches the U.S. for its "arrogance and insolence" in rejecting a truce offered by "our prince and leader," Osama Bin Laden. The United States Army aired an unedited tape of Zarqawi in May 2006 highlighting the fact that he did not know how to clear a stoppage on the stolen M249 Squad Automatic Weapon he was using.
Attempts to provoke US attack on Iran
A document found in Zarqawi's safe house indicates that the group was trying to provoke the US to attack Iran in order to reinvigorate the insurgency in Iraq and to weaken American forces in Iraq. "The question remains, how to draw the Americans into fighting a war against Iran? It is not known whether America is serious in its animosity towards Iran, because of the big support Iran is offering to America in its war in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Hence, it is necessary first to exaggerate the Iranian danger and to convince America and the West in general, of the real danger coming from Iran ..." The document then outlines six ways to incite war between the two nations.Alleged links to al-Qaeda
After the 2001 war in AfghanistanWar in Afghanistan (2001–present)
The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
, Zarqawi appeared on a U.S. list of most-wanted al-Qaeda terrorists still at large in early 2002.
According to the Washington Post and some other sources, he formally swore loyalty (Bay'ah
Bay'ah
Bay'ah , in Islamic terminology, is an oath of allegiance to a leader. It is known to have been practiced by the Islamic prophet Muhammad...
) to bin Laden in October 2004 and was in turn appointed bin Laden's deputy. Zarqawi then changed the name of his Monotheism and Jihad network to "al-Qaeda in Iraq," (Tanzim al-Qaeda wa'l-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn)
Pre US Invasion of Iraq
Before the invasion of Afghanistan, Zarqawi was the leader of an Islamic militant group with some connections to al-Qaeda. In an interview on Al-Majd TV, former al-Qaeda member Walid Khan, who was in Afghanistan fighting alongside Zarqawi's group explained that from the day al-Zarqawi's group arrived, there were disagreements, differences of opinion with bin Laden. Saif al-Adel, now bin Laden's military chief, was an Egyptian who attempted to overthrow the Egyptian government saw merit in Zarqawi's overall objective of overthrowing the Jordanian monarchy. He intervened and smoothed the relations between Zarqawi and Al Qaeda leadership. It was agreed that Zarqawi will be given the funds to start up his training camp outside the Afghan city of Herat, near the Iranian border.Zarqawi's group continued to receive funding from Osama bin Laden and pursued "a largely distinct, if occasionally overlapping agenda," according to The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
. Counterterrorism experts told the Washington Post that while Zarqawi accepted al-Qaeda's financial help to set up a training camp in Afghanistan he ran it independently and while bin Laden was planning September 11, Zarqawi was busy developing a plot to topple the Jordanian monarchy and attack Israel.
The Washington Post also reported that German Intelligence wiretaps found that in the fall of 2001 that Zarqawi grew angry when his members were raising money in Germany for al-Qaeda's local leadership. "If something should come from their side, simply do not accept it," Zarqawi told one of his followers, according to a recorded conversation that was played at a trial of four alleged Zarqawi operatives in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
.
In 2001, bin Laden repeatedly summoned al-Zarqawi from Herat to Kandahar, asking that he take an oath of allegiance to him. al-Zarqawi refused; he didn't want to take sides against the Northern Alliance, and doubted the fervor of bin Laden and the Taliban. When the United States launched its air war inside Afghanistan, on October 7, 2001, al-Zarqawi joined forces with al-Qaeda and the Taliban for the first time. He and his Jund al-Sham fought in and around Herat and Kandahar. When Zarqawi finally did take the oath in October 2004, it was after eight months of negotiations.
When Shadi Abdellah was arrested in 2002, he cooperated with authorities, but suggested that al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
were not as closely linked as previously believed, in large part because al-Zarqawi disagreed with many of the sentiments put forward by Mahfouz Ould al-Walid for al-Qaeda.
In April 2007, former Director of Central Intelligence
Director of Central Intelligence
The Office of United States Director of Central Intelligence was the head of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the principal intelligence advisor to the President and the National Security Council, and the coordinator of intelligence activities among and between the various United...
George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
released his memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
titled At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA is a memoir co-written by former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency George Tenet with Bill Harlow, former CIA Director of Public Affairs...
. In the book he reveals that in July 2001, an associate of Zarqawi had been detained and, during interrogations, linked Zarqawi with al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah
Abu Zubaydah
Abu Zubaydah is a Saudi Arabian citizen, sentenced to death in Jordan and currently held in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.Not neutral: Arrested in Pakistan in March 2002, he has been in US custody for more than eight years, four-and-a-half of them spent incommunicado in solitary confinement...
. Tenet also wrote in his book that Thirwat Shihata and Yussef Dardiri, "assessed by a senior al-Qa'ida detainee to be among the Egyptian Islamic Jihad's best operational planners," arrived in Baghdad in May 2002 and were engaged in "sending recruits to train in Zarqawi's camps."
Post US Invasion of Iraq
During or shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 20032003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
, Zarqawi returned to Iraq, where he met with Bin Laden's military chief, Saif al-Adel (Muhammad Ibrahim Makawi), who asked him to coordinate the entry of al-Qaeda operatives into Iraq through Syria. Zarqawi readily agreed and by the fall of 2003 a steady flow of Arab Islamists were infiltrating Iraq via Syria. Although many of these foreign fighters were not members of Tawhid, they became more or less dependent on Zarqawi's local contacts once they entered the unfamiliar country. Moreover, given Tawhid's superior intelligence gathering capability, it made little sense for non-Tawhid operatives to plan and carry out attacks without coordinating with Zarqawi's lieutenants. Consequentially, Zarqawi came to be recognized as the regional "emir" of Islamist terrorists in Iraq without having sworn fealty to bin Laden.
U.S. intelligence intercepted a January 2004 letter from Zarqawi to al Qaeda and American officials made it public in February 2004. In the letter to bin Laden, Zarqawi wrote:
In October 2004, a message on an Islamic Web site posted in the name of the spokesman of Zarqawi's group announced that Zarqawi had sworn his network's allegiance to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. The message stated that:
On December 27, 2004, Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera is an independent broadcaster owned by the state of Qatar through the Qatar Media Corporation and headquartered in Doha, Qatar...
broadcast an audiotape of bin Laden calling Zarqawi "the prince of al Qaeda in Iraq" and asked "all our organization brethren to listen to him and obey him in his good deeds." Since that time, Zarqawi had referred to his own organization as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad
Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a popular name for the Iraqi division of the international Salafi jihadi militant organization al-Qaeda. It is recognized as a part of the greater Iraqi insurgency....
.
In May 2007, President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
declassified a U.S. intelligence report that stated that bin Laden had enlisted Zarqawi to plan strikes inside the U.S., and warned that in January 2005 bin Laden had assigned Zarqawi to organize a cell inside Iraq that would be used to plan and carry out attacks against the U.S. "Bin Laden tasked the terrorist Zarqawi ... with forming a cell to conduct terrorist attacks outside of Iraq," Bush stated in a commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy. "Bin Laden emphasized that America should be Zarqawi's No.1 priority."
Terrorism experts' view on the alliance
According to experts, Zarqawi gave al-Qaeda a highly visible presence in Iraq at a time when its original leaders went into hiding or were killed after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. In turn, al-Qaeda leaders were able to brand a new franchise in Iraq and claim they were at the forefront of the fight to expel U.S. forces. But this relationship was proven to be fragile as Zarqawi angered al-Qaeda leaders by focusing attacks on Iraqi Shias more often than U.S. military. In September 2005, U.S. intelligence officials said they had confiscated a long letter that al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-ZawahiriAyman al-Zawahiri
Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri is an Egyptian physician, Islamic theologian and current leader of al-Qaeda. He was previously the second and last "emir" of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, having succeeded Abbud al-Zumar in the latter role when Egyptian authorities sentenced al-Zumar to life...
, had written to Zarqawi, bluntly warning that Muslim public opinion was turning against him. According to Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, "A number of al-Qaeda figures were uncomfortable with the tactics he was using in Iraq... It was quite clear with Zarqawi that as far as the al-Qaeda core leadership goes, they couldn't control the way in which their network affiliates operated."
US officials' view of the alliance
In June 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald RumsfeldDonald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
conceded that Zarqawi’s ties to Al Qaeda may have been much more ambiguous—and that he may have been more of a rival than a lieutenant to bin Laden. Zarqawi "may very well not have sworn allegiance to [bin Laden]," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing. "Maybe he disagrees with him on something, maybe because he wants to be ‘The Man’ himself and maybe for a reason that’s not known to me." Rumsfeld added that, "someone could legitimately say he’s not Al Qaeda."
According to the Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence released in September 2006, "in April 2003 the CIA learned from a senior al-Qa'ida detainee that al-Zarqawi had rebuffed several efforts by bin Ladin to recruit him. The detainee claimed that al-Zarqawi had religious differences with bin Ladin and disagreed with bin Laden's singular focus against the United States. The CIA assessed in April 2003 that al-Zarqawi planned and directed independent terrorist operations without al Qaeda direction, but assessed that he 'most likely contracts out his network's services to al Qaeda in return for material and financial assistance from key al Qaeda facilitators.'"(page 90)
In the April 2006 National Intelligence Estimate
National Intelligence Estimate
National Intelligence Estimates are United States federal government documents that are the authoritative assessment of the Director of National Intelligence on intelligence related to a particular national security issue...
, declassified in September 2006, it asserts that "Al-Qa’ida, now merged with Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi’s network, is exploiting the situation in Iraq to attract new recruits and donors and to maintain its leadership role."
Alleged links to Saddam Hussein
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...
addressed the U.N. Security Council on the issue of Iraq. Regarding Zarqawi, Powell stated that:
Zarqawi recuperated in Baghdad after being wounded while fighting along with Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. According to the 2004 Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq
Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq
The Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence was the report by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concerning the U.S. intelligence community's assessments of Iraq during the time leading up to the 2003 U.S. invasion...
, "A foreign government service asserted that the IIS (Iraqi Intelligence Service) knew where al-Zarqawi was located despite Baghdad’s claims that it could not find him."page 337 The Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence also stated "As indicated in Iraqi Support for Terrorism, the Iraqi regime was, at a minimum, aware of al-Zarqawi’s presence in Baghdad in 2002 because a foreign government service passed information regarding his whereabouts to Iraqi authorities in June 2002. Despite Iraq’s pervasive security apparatus and its receipt of detailed information about al-Zarqawi's possible location, however, Iraqi Intelligence told the foreign government service it could not locate al-Zarqawi."page 338
Jordanian analysis
A Jordanian security official told the Washington Post that documents recovered after the overthrow of Saddam show that Iraqi agents detained some of Zarqawi's operatives but released them after questioning. He also told the Washington Post that the Iraqis warned the Zarqawi operatives that the Jordanians knew where they were. The official also told the Washington Post that "'We sent many memos to Iraq during this time, asking them to identify his position, where he was, how he got weapons, how he smuggled them across the border,' but Hussein's government never responded."This claim was reiterated by Jordanian King Abdullah II
Abdullah II of Jordan
Abdullah II ibn al-Hussein is the reigning King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. He ascended the throne on 7 February 1999 after the death of his father King Hussein. King Abdullah, whose mother is Princess Muna al-Hussein, is a member of the Hashemite family...
in an interview with Al-Hayat. Abdullah revealed that Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
had rejected repeated requests from Jordan to hand over al-Zarqawi. According to Abdullah, "We had information that he entered Iraq from a neighboring country, where he lived and what he was doing. We informed the Iraqi authorities about all this detailed information we had, but they didn’t respond." Abdullah told the Al-Hayat that Jordan exerted "big efforts" with Saddam’s government to extradite al-Zarqawi, but added that "our demands that the former regime hand him over were in vain.
One high-level Jordanian intelligence official told the Atlantic Monthly that al-Zarqawi, after leaving Afghanistan in December 2001, frequently traveled to the Sunni Triangle of Iraq where he expanded his network, recruited and trained new fighters, and set up bases, safe houses, and military training camps. He said, however, "We know Zarqawi better than he knows himself. And I can assure you that he never had any links to Saddam."
Counterterrorism scholar Loretta Napoleoni
Loretta Napoleoni
Loretta Napoleoni is an Italian economist, author, journalist and political analyst. She is an expert on the financing of terrorism and is well known internationally for having calculated the size of the terror economy.-Life and career:...
quotes former Jordanian parliamentarian Layth Shubaylat, a radical Islamist
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism is a term used to describe religious ideologies seen as advocating a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam: the Quran and the Sunnah. Definitions of the term vary. According to Christine L...
opposition figure, who was personally acquainted with both Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein:
US conclusion
A CIA report in late 2004 concluded that there was no evidence Saddam's government was involved or even aware of this medical treatment, and found no conclusive evidence the regime had harbored Zarqawi. A US official told ReutersReuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
that the report was a mix of new information and a look at some older information and did not make any final judgments or come to any definitive conclusions. "To suggest the case is closed on this would not be correct," the official said." A US official familiar with the report told Knight-Ridder that "what is indisputable is that Zarqawi was operating out of Baghdad and was involved in a lot of bad activities." Another U.S. official summarized the report as such: "The evidence is that Saddam never gave Zarqawi anything."
According to the 2004 Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence, "The CIA provided four reports detailing the debriefings of Abu Zubaydah
Abu Zubaydah
Abu Zubaydah is a Saudi Arabian citizen, sentenced to death in Jordan and currently held in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.Not neutral: Arrested in Pakistan in March 2002, he has been in US custody for more than eight years, four-and-a-half of them spent incommunicado in solitary confinement...
, a captured senior coordinator for al-Qaida responsible for training and recruiting. Abu Zubaydah said that he was not aware of a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida. He also said, however, that any relationship would be highly compartmented and went on to name al-Qaida members who he thought had good contacts with the Iraqis. For instance, Abu Zubaydah indicated that he had heard that an important al-Qaida associate, Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, and others had good relationships with Iraqi Intelligence."
A classified memo obtained by Stephen F. Hayes
Stephen F. Hayes
Stephen F. Hayes is a columnist for The Weekly Standard, a prominent American conservative magazine. Hayes has been selected as the official biographer for Vice President Richard Cheney....
, prepared by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith in response to questions posed by the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence, stated the following regarding al-Zarqawi:
The memo was a collection of raw intelligence reports and drew no conclusions. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed to Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
that the "reports [in the memo] were old, uncorroborated and came from sources of unknown if not dubious credibility."
The 2006 Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence concluded that Zarqawi was not a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda: "Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi." The report also cited the debriefing of a "high-ranking Iraqi official" by the FBI. The official stated that a foreign government requested in October 2002 that the IIS locate five individuals suspected of involvement in the murder of Laurence Foley, which lead to the arrest of Abu Yasim Sayyem in early 2003. The official told the FBI that evidence of Sayyem's ties to Zarqawi was compelling, and thus, he was "shocked" when Sayemm was ordered released by Saddam. The official stated it "was ludicrous to think that the IIS had any involvement with al-Qaeda or Zarqawi," and suggested Saddam let Sayyem go because he "would participate in striking U.S. forces when they entered Iraq." In 2005, according to the Senate report, the CIA amended its 2004 report to conclude that "the regime did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates."page 91–92 An intelligence official familiar with the CIA assessment also told Michael Isikoff of Newsweek magazine that the current draft of the report says that while Zarqawi did likely receive medical treatment in Baghdad in 2002, the report concludes that "most evidence suggests Saddam Hussein did not provide Zarqawi safe haven before the war,...[but] it also recognizes that there are still unanswered questions and gaps in knowledge about the relationship."
The Army's Foreign Military Studies Office website translated a letter dated August 17, 2002 from an Iraqi intelligence official. The letter is part of the Operation Iraqi Freedom documents
Operation Iraqi Freedom documents
Operation Iraqi Freedom documents are some 48,000 boxes of documents, audiotapes and videotapes that were discovered by the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The documents date from the 1980s through the post-Saddam period. The U.S...
. The letter asks agents in the country to be on the lookout for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and another unnamed man. Pictures of both men were attached.
The letter issued the following 3 directives:
- Instructing your sources to continue their surveillance of the above mentioned individuals in your area of operations and inform us once you initiate such action.
- Coordinate with Directorate 18 to verify the photographs of the above mentioned with photos of the members of the Jordanian community within your area of operations.
- Conduct a comprehensive survey of all tourist facilities (hotels, furnished apartments, and leased homes). Give this matter your utmost attention. Keep us informed.
The documents also contain responses to this request. One response, dated August 2002, states "Upon verifying the information through our sources and friends in the field as well as office (3), we found no information to confirm the presence of the above mentioned in our area of operation. Please review, we suggest circulating the contents of this message." Another response, also dated August 2002, states "After closely examining the data and through our sources and friends in (SATTS: U R A) square, and in Al-Qa'im immigration office, and in Office (3), none of the mentioned individuals are documented to be present in our area of jurisdiction."
According to ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
, "The letter seems to be coming from or going to Trebil
Trebil
Trebil is a village in the Al Anbar Governorate of Iraq, on the Iraq–Jordan border. The Al-Karama border crossing near Trebil is the primary border crossing point between Iraq and Jordan.-References:*Jon Elmer, , New Standard News, 2005-07-13....
, a town on the Iraqi-Jordanian border. Follow up on the presence of those subjects is ordered, as well as a comparison of their pictures with those of Jordanian subjects living in Iraq. (This may be referring to pictures of Abu Musaab al Zarqawi and another man on pages 4–6.)"
In his book At the Center of the Storm, George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
writes:
According to Tenet, while Zarqawi did find a safe haven in Iraq and did supervise camps in northeastern Iraq run by Ansar al-Islam
Ansar al-Islam
Ansar al-Islam is a Sunni Islamist group of Iraqis, promoting a radical interpretation of Islam, close to the official Saudi ideology of Wahhabism with strict application of Sharia. The group was formed in the northern provinces of Iraq near the Iranian border, and previously had established...
, "the intelligence did not show any Iraqi authority, direction, or control over any of the many specific terrorist acts carried out by al-Qa'ida."
Doubts about his importance
Some people have claimed that Zarqawi's notoriety was the product of U.S. war propagandaPropaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
designed to promote the image of a demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
ic enemy figure to help justify continued U.S. military operations in Iraq, perhaps with the tacit support of jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
i elements who wished to use him as a propaganda tool or as a distraction. In one report, the conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
newspaper Daily Telegraph described the claim that Zarqawi was the head of the "terrorist network" in Iraq as a "myth". This report cited an unnamed U.S. military intelligence source to the effect that the Zarqawi leadership "myth" was initially caused by faulty intelligence, but was later accepted because it suited U.S. government political goals. One Sunni insurgent leader claimed on December 11 that "Zarqawi is an American, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i and Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian agent who is trying to keep our country unstable so that the Sunnis will keep facing occupation."
On February 18, 2006, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr
Muqtada al-Sadr
Sayyid Muqtadā al-Ṣadr is an Iraqi Islamic political leader.Along with Ali al-Sistani and Ammar al-Hakim of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Sadr is one of the most influential religious and political figures in the country not holding any official title in the Iraqi government.-Titles:He is...
made similar charges:
On April 10, 2006, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. military conducted a major propaganda offensive designed to exaggerate Zarqawi's role in the Iraqi insurgency. Gen. Mark Kimmitt
Mark Kimmitt
Mark Traecey Patrick Kimmitt was the 16th Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, serving under George W. Bush from August 2008 to January 2009. Prior to joining the State Department, he was a Brigadier General in the United States Army, and served as the Deputy Assistant...
says of the propaganda campaign that there "was no attempt to manipulate the press." In an internal briefing, Kimmitt is quoted as stating, "The Zarqawi PSYOP Program is the most successful information campaign to date." The main goal of the propaganda campaign seems to have been to exacerbate a rift between insurgent forces in Iraq, but intelligence experts worried that it had actually enhanced Zarqawi's influence. Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and then was one of the top officers handling Iraq intelligence issues on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a body of senior uniformed leaders in the United States Department of Defense who advise the Secretary of Defense, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council and the President on military matters...
, warned an Army meeting in 2004 that "Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will — made him more important than he really is, in some ways." While Pentagon spokespersons state unequivocally that PSYOPs may not be used to influence American citizens, there is little question that the information disseminated through the program has found its way into American media sources. The Washington Post also notes that "One briefing slide about U.S. "strategic communications" in Iraq, prepared for Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, describes the "home audience" as one of six major targets of the American side of the war."
On July 4, 2006, the US Ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad
Zalmay Khalilzad
Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad is a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and president of Khalilzad Associates, an international business consulting firm based in Washington, DC. He was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush...
, in an interview with the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, said: "In terms of the level of violence, it (the death of al-Zarqawi) has not had any impact at this point... the level of violence is still quite high." But Khalilzad maintained his view that the killing had though encouraged some insurgent groups to "reach out" and join government reconcialiation talks, he believed that previously these groups were intimidated by Zarqawi's presence.
On June 8, 2006, on the BBC's Question Time
Question Time
Question time in a parliament occurs when members of the parliament ask questions of government ministers , which they are obliged to answer. It usually occurs daily while parliament is sitting, though it can be cancelled in exceptional circumstances...
program, the Respect Party MP George Galloway
George Galloway
George Galloway is a British politician, author, journalist and broadcaster who was a Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2010. He was formerly an MP for the Labour Party, first for Glasgow Hillhead and later for Glasgow Kelvin, before his expulsion from the party in October 2003, the same year...
referred to al-Zarqawi as "a 'Boogeyman', built up by the Americans to try and perpetrate the lie that the resistance in Iraq are by foreigners, and that the mass of the Iraqis are with the American and British occupation". Jeffrey Gettleman
Jeffrey Gettleman
Jeffrey A. Gettleman is an American journalist who has been the East Africa bureau chief for The New York Times, based in Nairobi, Kenya, since 2006.-Early Life:...
of the New York Times supported this saying "several people who knew Mr. Zarqawi well, including former cellmates, voiced doubts about his ability to be an insurgent leader, or the leader of anything". In the July/August 2006 issue of The Atlantic, Mary Anne Weaver doubted that the figure who beheads Nicholas Berg in the execution video was in fact al-Zarqawi.
On August 21, 2006, Jill Carroll
Jill Carroll
Jill Carroll is an American former journalist who was kidnapped and ultimately released in Iraq. Carroll was a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor at the time of her kidnapping...
, a journalist for the Christian Science Monitor, published part 6 of her story detailing her captivity in Iraq. In it, she describes how one of her captors, who identified himself as Abdullah Rashid and leader of the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq, conveyed to her that "The Americans were constantly saying that the mujahideen
Mujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
in Iraq were led by foreigners...So, the Iraqi insurgents went to Zarqawi and insisted that an Iraqi be put in charge." She continued by stating: "But as I saw in coming weeks, Zarqawi remained the insurgents' hero, and the most influential member of their council, whatever Nour/Rashid's position. And it seemed to me, based on snatches of conversations, that two cell leaders under him – Abu Rasha and Abu Ahmed – might also be on the council. At various times, I heard my captors discussing changes in their plans because of directives from the council and Zarqawi."
Pre-war opportunities to kill him
According to NBC NewsNBC News
NBC News is the news division of American television network NBC. It first started broadcasting in February 21, 1940. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is...
, the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
had pushed to "take out" Zarqawi's operation at least three times prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
, but had been vetoed by the National Security Council
United States National Security Council
The White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...
. The council reportedly made its decision in an effort to convince other countries to join the US in a coalition against Iraq. "People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of pre-emption against terrorists," said former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.
In May 2006, former CIA official Michael Scheuer
Michael Scheuer
Michael F. Scheuer is a former CIA intelligence officer, American blogger, historian, foreign policy critic, and political analyst. He is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies...
, who headed the CIA's bin Laden unit for six years before resigning in 2004, corroborated this. Paraphrasing his remarks, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
stated Scheuer claimed that "the United States deliberately turned down several opportunities to kill terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the lead-up to the Iraq war." ABC added that "a plan to destroy Zarqawi's training camp in Kurdistan was abandoned for diplomatic reasons." Scheuer explained that "the reasons the intelligence service got for not shooting Zarqawi was simply that the President and the National Security Council decided it was more important not to give the Europeans the impression we were gunslingers" in an effort to win support for ousting Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
.
This claim was also corroborated by CENTCOM's Deputy Commander, Lieutenant General
Lieutenant General (United States)
In the United States Army, the United States Air Force and the United States Marine Corps, lieutenant general is a three-star general officer rank, with the pay grade of O-9. Lieutenant general ranks above major general and below general...
Michael DeLong, in an interview with PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
on February 14, 2006. DeLong, however, claims that the reasons for abandoning the opportunity to take out Zarqawi's camp was that the Pentagon feared that an attack would contaminate the area with chemical weapon
Chemical warfare
Chemical warfare involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. This type of warfare is distinct from Nuclear warfare and Biological warfare, which together make up NBC, the military acronym for Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical...
materials: "We almost took them out three months before the Iraq war started. We almost took that thing, but we were so concerned that the chemical cloud from there could devastate the region that we chose to take them by land rather than by smart weapons."
Missing leg
Claims of harm to Zarqawi changed over time. Early in 2002, there were unverified reports from Afghan 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 BaghdadBaghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
in 2002 to have his leg amputated. On October 7, 2002, the day before Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
voted to give President George W. Bush authorization to invade Iraq, Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, that repeated as fact the claim that he had sought medical treatment in Baghdad. This was one of several of President Bush's examples of ways Saddam Hussein had aided, funded, and harbored al-Qaeda. Powell repeated this claim in his February 2003 speech to the UN, urging a resolution for war, and it soon became "common knowledge" that Zarqawi had a prosthetic leg.
In 2004, Newsweek reported that some "senior US military officials in Baghdad" had come to believe that he still had his original legs. Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by The McClatchy Company on June 27, 2006, it was the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspapers sold.- History :The corporate ancestors of...
later reported that the leg amputation was something "officials now acknowledge was incorrect."
When the video of the Berg beheading was released in 2004, credence was given to the claim that Zarqawi was alive and active. The man identified as Zarqawi in the video did not appear to have a prosthetic leg. Videos of Zarqawi aired in 2006 that clearly showed him with both legs intact. When Zarqawi's body was autopsied, "X-rays also showed a fracture of his right lower leg."
Claims of death
Imam
An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...
.
On May 24, 2005, it was reported on an Islamic website that a deputy would take command of Al-Qaeda while Zarqawi recovered from injuries sustained in an attack. Later that week the Iraqi government confirmed that Zarqawi had been wounded by US forces, although the battalion did not realize it at the time. The extent of his injuries is not known, although some radical Islamic websites called for prayers for his health. There are reports that a local hospital treated a man, suspected to be Zarqawi, with severe injuries. He was also said to have subsequently left Iraq for a neighbouring country, accompanied by two physicians. However, later that week the radical Islamic website retracted its report about his injuries and claimed that he was in fine health and was running the jihad operation.
In a September 16, 2005 article published by Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
, Sheikh Jawad Al-Kalesi claimed that al-Zarqawi was killed in the Kurdish northern region of Iraq at the beginning of the US-led war on the country as he was meeting with members of the Ansar al-Islam
Ansar al-Islam
Ansar al-Islam is a Sunni Islamist group of Iraqis, promoting a radical interpretation of Islam, close to the official Saudi ideology of Wahhabism with strict application of Sharia. The group was formed in the northern provinces of Iraq near the Iranian border, and previously had established...
group affiliated to al-Qaeda. Al-Kalesi also claimed "His family in Jordan even held a ceremony after his death." He also claimed that "Zarqawi has been used as a ploy by the United States, as an excuse to continue the occupation" and saying, "It was a pretext so they don't leave Iraq."
On November 20, 2005, some news sources reported that Zarqawi may have been killed in a coalition assault on a house in Mosul
Mosul
Mosul , is a city in northern Iraq and the capital of the Ninawa Governorate, some northwest of Baghdad. The original city stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial...
; five of those in the house were killed in the assault while the other three died through using 'suicide belts' of explosives. United States and British soldiers searched the remains, with U.S. forces using DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
samples to identify the dead. However, none of those remains belonged to him.
Reportedly captured and released
According to a CNN report dated December 15, 2005, al-Zarqawi was captured by Iraqi forces sometime during 2004 and later released because his captors did not realize who he was. This claim was made by a Saudi suicide bomber, Ahmed Abdullah al-Shaiyah, who survived a failed suicide attemptFailed suicide attempt
Failed suicide attempts comprise a large portion of suicide attempts. Some are regarded as not true attempts at all, but rather parasuicide. The usual attempt may be a wish to affect another person by the behaviour. Consequently, it occurs in a social context and may represent a request for help....
to blow up the Jordanian mission in Baghdad in December. "Do you know what has happened to Zarqawi and where he is?" an Iraqi investigator asked Mr. Shaiyah. He answered, "I don't know, but I heard from some of my mujahadeen brothers that Iraqi police had captured Zarqawi in Fallujah
Fallujah
Fallujah is a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly west of Baghdad on the Euphrates. Fallujah dates from Babylonian times and was host to important Jewish academies for many centuries....
." Mr. Shaiyah says he then heard that the police let the terrorist go because they had failed to recognize him. U.S. officials called the report "plausible" but refused to confirm it.
Death
Targeted killing
Targeted killing is the deliberate, specific targeting and killing, by a government or its agents, of a supposed terrorist or of a supposed "unlawful combatant" who is not in that government's custody...
on June 7, 2006, while attending a meeting in an isolated safehouse approximately 8 km (5 mi) north of Baqubah
Baqubah
Baqubah is the capital of Iraq's Diyala Governorate.The city is located some to the northeast of Baghdad, on the Diyala River. In 2003 it had an estimated population of some 467,900 people....
. At 14:15 GMT two United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
F-16C jets identified the house and the lead jet dropped two 500-pound (230 kg) guided bombs, a laser-guided GBU-12 and GPS
Global Positioning System
The Global Positioning System is a space-based global navigation satellite system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites...
-guided GBU-38 on the building located at 33°48′02.83"N 44°30′48.58"E. Six others—three male and three female individuals—were also reported killed. Among those killed were one of his wives and their child.
The story of the successful hunt for Zarqawi is told in the book How to Break a Terrorist
How to Break a Terrorist
How to Break a Terrorist: The US Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq is a book written by an American soldier who played a key role in tracking down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi....
by Matthew Alexander (not a real name). Alexander and his team of interrogators convinced one of Zarqawi's associates to betray him.
The joint task force (Task Force 145) had been tracking him for some time, and although there were some close calls, he had eluded them on many occasions. United States intelligence officials then received tips from Iraqi senior leaders from Zarqawi's network that he and some of his associates were in the Baqubah area. The safehouse itself was watched for over six weeks before Zarqawi was observed entering the building by operators from Task Force 145. Jordanian intelligence reportedly helped to identify his location. The area was subsequently secured by Iraqi security forces, who were the first ground forces to arrive.
On June 8, 2006, coalition forces confirmed that Zarqawi's body was identified by facial recognition, fingerprinting, known scars and tattoos. They also announced the death of one of his key lieutenants, spiritual adviser Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman
Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman
Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman , also Shaykh Abd Al-Rahman or Sheik Abd Al-Rahman, was the spiritual advisor to al-Qaeda in Iraq until his death in June 2006.-Death:...
.
Initially, the US military reported that Zarqawi was killed directly in the attack. However, according to a statement made the following day by Major General William Caldwell
William B. Caldwell
William B. Caldwell, IV is a United States Army Lieutenant General who is serving as the Commander, NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan, as well as, Commanding General, Combined Security Transition Command - Afghanistan....
of the U.S. Army, Zarqawi survived for a short time after the bombing, and after being placed on a stretcher, attempted to move and was restrained, after which he died from his injuries. An Iraqi man, who claims to have arrived on the scene a few moments after the attack, said he saw U.S. troops beating up the badly wounded but still alive Zarqawi. In contradiction, Caldwell asserted that when U.S. troops found Zarqawi barely alive they tried to provide him with medical help, rejecting the allegations that he was beaten based on an autopsy performed. The account of the Iraqi witness has not been verified. All others in the house died immediately in the blasts. On June 12, 2006, it was reported that an autopsy performed by the U.S. military revealed that the cause of death to Zarqawi was a blast injury to the lungs, but he took nearly an hour to die.
Reactions to death
Prime Minister of Iraq Nuri al-Maliki commented on the death of Zarqawi by saying: "Today, Zarqawi has been terminated. Every time a Zarqawi appears we will kill him. We will continue confronting whoever follows his path."United States President George W. Bush stated that through his every action Zarqawi sought to defeat America and its coalition partners by turning Iraq into a safe haven for al-Qaeda. Bush also stated, "Now Zarqawi has met his end and this violent man will never murder again."
Zarqawi's brother-in-law has since claimed that he was a martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
even though the family renounced Zarqawi and his actions in the aftermath of the Amman triple suicide bombing
2005 Amman bombings
The 2005 Amman bombings were a series of coordinated bomb attacks on three hotels in Amman, Jordan, on 9 November 2005. The attacks killed 60 people and injured 115 others. The explosions—at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Radisson SAS Hotel, and the Days Inn—started at around 20:50 local time at the...
that killed at least 60 people. The opinion of Iraqis on his death is mixed; some believe that it will promote peace between the warring factions, while others are convinced that his death will provoke his followers to a massive retaliation
Revenge
Revenge is a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. It is also called payback, retribution, retaliation or vengeance; it may be characterized, justly or unjustly, as a form of justice.-Function in society:Some societies believe that the...
and cause more bombings and deaths in Iraq.
Abu Abdulrahman al-Iraqi, the deputy of al-Zarqawi (who may be the individual called "Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman" mentioned above, meaning he was not present as the bombing happened), released a statement to Islamist websites indicating that al-Qaeda in Iraq also confirmed Zarqawi's death: "We herald the martyrdom of our mujahed
Mujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq ... and we stress that this is an honor to our nation." In the statement, al-Iraqi vowed to continue the jihad in Iraq.
On June 16, 2006, Abu Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi, the head of the Mujahideen Shura Council, which groups five Iraqi insurgent
Iraqi insurgency
The Iraqi Resistance is composed of a diverse mix of militias, foreign fighters, all-Iraqi units or mixtures opposing the United States-led multinational force in Iraq and the post-2003 Iraqi government...
organizations including al-Qaida in Iraq, released an audio tape statement in which he described the death of al-Zarqawi as a "great loss." He continued by stating that al-Zarqawi "will remain a symbol for all the mujahideen, who will take strength from his steadfastness." Al-Baghdadi is believed to be a former officer in Saddam's army, or its elite Republican Guard
Iraqi Republican Guard
The Iraqi Republican Guard was a branch of the Iraqi military during the presidency of Saddam Hussein. It later became the Republican Guard Corps, and then the Republican Guard Forces Command with its expansion into two corps....
, who has worked closely with al-Zarqawi since the overthrow of Saddam's regime
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
in April 2003.
Counterterrorism officials have said that al-Zarqawi had become a key part of al-Qaeda's marketing campaign and that al-Zarqawi served as a "worldwide jihadist rallying point and a fundraising icon." Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, called al-Zarqawi "The terrorist celeb, if you will, ... It is like selling for any organization. They are selling the success of Zarqawi in eluding capture in Iraq."
On June 23, 2006, Al-Jazeera aired a video in which Ayman al-Zawahiri
Ayman al-Zawahiri
Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri is an Egyptian physician, Islamic theologian and current leader of al-Qaeda. He was previously the second and last "emir" of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, having succeeded Abbud al-Zumar in the latter role when Egyptian authorities sentenced al-Zumar to life...
, al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, states that Zarqawi was "a soldier, a hero, an imam
Imam
An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...
and the prince of martyrs, [and his death] has defined the struggle between the crusaders and Islam in Iraq."
On June 30, 2006, Osama bin Laden released an audio recording in which he stated, "Our Islamic nation was surprised to find its knight, the lion of jihad, the man of determination and will, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a shameful American raid. We pray to Allah to bless him and accept him among the martyrs as he had hoped for." Bin Laden also defended al-Zarqawi, saying he had "clear instructions" to focus on U.S.-led forces in Iraq but also "for those who ... stood to fight on the side of the crusaders against the Muslims, then he should kill them whoever they are, regardless of their sect or tribe." Shortly after, he released another audio tape in which he stated, "Our brothers, the mujahedeen in the al-Qaeda organization, have chosen the dear brother Abu Hamza al-Muhajer as their leader to succeed the Amir Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. I advise him to focus his fighting on the Americans and everyone who supports them and allies himself with them in their war on the people of Islam and Iraq."
Alleged betrayal by al-Qaeda
A day before Zarqawi was killed, a U.S. strategic analysis site suggested that Zarqawi could have lost the trust of al-Qaeda due to his emphatic anti-Shia stance and the massacres of civilians allegedly committed in his name. Reports in The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
on June 9 treated the betrayal by at least one fellow al-Qaeda member as fact, stating that an individual close to Zarqawi disclosed the identity and location of Sheik Abd al-Rahman to Jordanian and American intelligence. Non-stop surveillance of Abd al-Rahman quickly led to Zarqawi.
The Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
quotes an unnamed Jordanian official as saying that the effort to find Zarqawi was successful partly due to information that Jordan obtained one month beforehand from a captured Zarqawi al-Qaeda operative named Ziad Khalaf Raja al-Karbouly
Ziad Khalaf Raja al-Karbouly
A high-ranking aide of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the Iraq War, Ziad Khalaf Raja al-Karbouly was captured by Jordanian intelligence officers in May 2006 and gave information that may have resulted in al-Zarqawi's death in an air strike a month later.A native of Al-Qa'im, he confessed to having...
.
Reward
In apparent contradiction to statements made earlier in the day by U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay KhalilzadZalmay Khalilzad
Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad is a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and president of Khalilzad Associates, an international business consulting firm based in Washington, DC. He was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush...
, an Iraqi spokesman said the US$25 million reward "will be honored" (although this need not mean that any money will actually be paid, as the terms of the reward would indeed be "honored" by having no payee if no one qualifies). Khalilzad, in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer
Wolf Blitzer
Wolf Isaac Blitzer is an American journalist who has been a CNN reporter since 1990. Blitzer is currently the host of the newscast The Situation Room and was the host of the Sunday talk show Late Edition until it was discontinued on January 11, 2009...
, had stated the bounty would not be paid because the decisive information leading to Zarqawi's whereabouts had been supplied by an al-Qaeda in Iraq operative whose own complicity in violent acts would disqualify him from receiving payment.
Rep. Mark Kirk
Mark Kirk
Mark Steven Kirk is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and a member of the Republican Party. Previously, Kirk was a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Illinois's 10th congressional district....
, a Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
of Illinois who drafted the legislation specifying the Zarqawi reward, was quoted as saying contemporaneously that the Bush Administration planned to pay "some rewards" for Zarqawi. "I don't have the specifics," he stated. "The administration is now working out who will get it and how much. As their appropriator who funds them, I asked them to let me know if they need more money to run the rewards program now that they are paying this out."
Post-Zarqawi Iraq environment
Zarqawi's death was seen a major coup for the US government in terms of the political and propaganda stakes. However, unconfirmed rumors in early April 2006 suggested that Zarqawi had been demoted from a strategic or coordinating function to overseer of paramilitary/terrorist activities of his group and that Abdullah bin Rashed al-Baghdadi of the Mujahideen Shura Council succeeded Zarqawi in the former function. On June 15, 2006, the United States military officially identified Abu Ayyub al-MasriAbu Ayyub al-Masri
Abu Ayyub al-Masri , also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir and other aliases , was an active combattant of al-Qaeda and at least a senior aide to former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. When Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike on 7 June 2006, U.S...
as the successor to Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
After Zarqawi's demise in early June 2006 there has been little or no immediately identifiable change in terms of the level of violence and attacks against U.S. and allied troops. In the immediate aftermath insurgency attacks averaged 90 a day, apparently some of the highest on record. Four months after Zarqawi's death, it is estimated that 374 coalition soldiers and 10,355 Iraqis have been killed. Several insurgency groups and heads of Sunni Muslim tribes also formed a coalition called the Mujahideen Shura Council.
By late 2007, violent and indiscriminate attacks directed by AQI against Iraqi civilians had severely damaged their image and caused the loss of support among the population, isolating the group. In a major blow to AQI, thousands of former Sunni militants that previously fought along with the group started to actively fight AQI and also work with the American and Iraqi forces starting with the creation of the Anbar Awakening Council because of its Anbar origins. The group spread to all Sunni cities and communities and some Shite areas and adopted the broader name Sons of Iraq. The Sons of Iraq was instrumental in giving tips to coalition forces about weapons caches and militants resulting in the destruction of over 2,500 weapons caches and over 800 militants being killed or captured. In addition, the 30,000 strong U.S. troop surge supplied military planners with more manpower for operations targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq, The Mujahadeen Shura Council, Ansar Al-Sunnah and other terrorist groups. The resulting events leading to dozens of high-level AQI leaders being captured or killed. Al-Qaeda seemed to have lost its foothold in Iraq and appeared to be severely crippled due to its lack of vast weapons caches, leaders, safe havens, and Iraqis willing to support them. Accordingly, the bounty issued for Abu Ayyub-al-Masri AKA Abu Hamza al-Muhajer was eventually cut from $5 million down to a mere $100,000 in April 2008.
On January 8, 2008, and January 28, 2008, Iraqi and U.S. forces launched Operation Phantom Phoenix
Operation Phantom Phoenix
Operation Phantom Phoenix was a major nation-wide offensive launched by the Multinational Force Iraq on January 8, 2008 in an attempt to build on the success of the two previous corps-level operations, Operation Phantom Thunder and Operation Phantom Strike and further reduce violence and secure...
and the Ninawa campaign
Ninawa campaign
The Ninawa campaign was a series of offensives and counter-attacks between insurgent and Coalition forces for control of the Ninawa Governorate in northern Iraq in early to mid-2008...
AKA the Mosul Campaign killing and capturing over 4,600 militants and locating and destroying over 3,000 weapons caches in those 2 campaigns. Also effectively leaving AQI with 1 last major insurgent stronghold Diyala. On July 29, 2008, Iraqi, U.S. and Sons Of Iraq forces launched Operation Augurs of Prosperity in the Diyala province and surrounding areas to clear AQI out of its last stronghold. 2 operations were already launched before in Diyala with mixed results and this campaign was expected to face fierce resistance. The rustling operation left over 500 weapons caches destroyed and 5 militants killed; 483 militants were captured due to the lack of resistance from the insurgent forces. 24 high level AQI terrorists were killed or captured in the campaign.
External links
Articles- 'How the Zarqawi myth was made in America', Nick DaviesNick DaviesNick Davies is a British investigative journalist, writer and documentary maker.Davies has written extensively as a freelancer, as well as for The Guardian and The Observer, and been named Reporter of the Year Journalist of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year at the British Press Awards...
- Zarqawi: Taking Care of Business, Daniel RossDaniel Ross (Australian philosopher and filmmaker)Daniel Ross is an Australian philosopher and filmmaker, best known as the author of and the co-director of the film The Ister...
, 1 August 2006 - "Al-Zarqawi: A life drenched in blood", Patrick Cockburn, The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, 9 June 2006