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Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

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File:Zarqawi.jpg
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in an undated passport photograph (via AP and the BBC).

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (Template:Lang-ar) (October 20 1966 – June 7 2006) was a Salafi Muslim militant leader and the self-proclaimed leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. One or more individuals identifying themselves as Zarqawi took responsibility, on several audiotapes, for numerous acts of violence in Iraq, including the killing of civilians and the taking of hostages. He was also allegedly responsible for many other acts of violence, including the beheading of hostages in Iraq.

As an Islamist identified with the Salafi movement of Wahhabism, Zarqawi opposed the presence of American and Western military forces in the Islamic world and opposed the West's support for Israel. In September 2005, he reportedly declared "all-out war" on Shia Muslims in Iraq,[1] and is believed responsible for dispatching numerous Al-Qaeda suicide bombers throughout Iraq, and especially to areas with large concentrations of Shia civilians. As the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq he is suspected of causing thousands of people's deaths--many if not most of them civilians.

Zarqawi, a longtime ally of Osama bin Laden, was a high-ranking member of bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, and since October 2004 had referred to his own organization Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, or Monotheism and Holy War Group, an insurgent network operating in Iraq, as "Al-Qaeda in Iraq". On October 21 2004, Zarqawi officially announced his allegiance to Al Qaeda; 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."[2]

Zarqawi was the most wanted man in Jordan and Iraq,[3] having participated in or masterminded a number of violent actions against United States, Jordanian and Iraqi targets. The U.S. government offered a USD $25 million 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.[4]

Zarqawi was killed in Baquba by a U.S. airstrike on June 7 2006.[5]

Earlier years

One alias, Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh (Template:Lang-ar), is believed to have been his real name. The surname Zarqawi literally translates as "man from Zarqa". Zarqawi was a native of the Jordanian city of Zarqa, located 30 minutes northeast of the capital Amman.[6][7]

The son of a native Jordanian family (al-Khalayleh of the Beni Hassan tribe), Zarqawi grew up in the Jordanian city of Zarqa amidst poverty and squalor. At the age of 17, he dropped out of school. According to vague Jordanian intelligence reports, Zarqawi was jailed briefly in the 1980s. Subsequently, he was active as a militant in Afghanistan, Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere.

File:Zarqawi001.jpg
A photo of al-Zarqawi from CNN

In 1989, Zarqawi travelled to Afghanistan to join the insurgency against the Soviet invasion, but the Soviets were already leaving by the time he arrived. It is thought that he met and befriended Osama bin Laden while there. Instead of fighting, he became a reporter for an Islamist newsletter. There are reports that in the mid-1990s, Zarqawi travelled to Europe and started the al-Tawhid militant organization, a group dedicated to installing an Islamic regime in Jordan.

Zarqawi was arrested in Jordan in 1992, and spent seven years in a Jordanian prison for conspiring to overthrow the monarchy to establish an Islamic caliphate. According to some reports in prison Zarqawi reportedly became a feared leader among inmates. According to others, he lacked the intelligence and charisma to lead any organization.

Upon his release from prison in 1999, Zarqawi was involved in an attempt to blow up the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, Jordan where many Israeli and American tourists lodged. He fled Jordan and travelled to Peshawar, Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border. In Afghanistan, Zarqawi established a militant training camp near Herat. According to the Bush administration, the training camp specialized in poisons and explosives.

Jordanian and European intelligence agencies claim that Zarqawi formed the group Jund al-Sham in 1999 with $200,000 of startup money from Osama bin Laden. The group originally consisted of 150 members. It was infiltrated by members of Jordanian intelligence and scattered by Operation Enduring Freedom but in March 2005, a group of the same name claimed responsibility for a bombing in Doha, Qatar.[8]

Sometime in 2001, Zarqawi was arrested in Jordan but was soon released. Later, he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to death for plotting the attack on the Radisson SAS Hotel.[7]

After the September 11 attacks, Zarqawi again travelled to Afghanistan and was allegedly wounded in a U.S. bombardment. He moved to Iran to organize al-Tawhid, his former militant organization. Zarqawi supposedly traveled to Iraq to have his wounded leg treated at a hospital run by Uday Hussein. In the summer of 2002, Zarqawi was reported to have settled in northern Iraq, where he joined the Islamist Ansar al-Islam group that fought against Kurdish-nationalist forces in the region.[9] He reportedly became a leader in the group, although his leadership role has not been established.

In Colin Powell's famous February 2003 speech to the United Nations urging war against Iraq, Zarqawi was cited as an example of Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism. In his speech, Powell mistakenly referred to Zarqawi as a Palestinian, but Powell and the Bush administration continued to stand by statements that Zarqawi linked Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda.

At the time, Zarqawi's group was a rival of bin Laden's. A CIA report in late 2004 concluded that it had no evidence Saddam's government was involved or aware of this medical treatment, and that "There’s no conclusive evidence the Saddam Hussein regime had harbored Zarqawi."[10] [11] One U.S. official summarized the report: "The evidence is that Saddam never gave Zarqawi anything."[12] However, Jordan's King Abdullah stated in an interview that Jordan had detailed information of where in Iraq Zarqawi lived. Jordan attempted to have Zarqawi extradited, "but our demands that the former regime [of Saddam Hussein] hand him over were in vain," King Abdullah said.[13]

According to MSNBC, the Pentagon had pushed to "take out" Zarqawi's operation at least three times prior to the invasion of Iraq, but had been vetoed by the National Security Council. The council's decision was made because they thought it would make it harder 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. Former CIA official Michael Scheuer told reporters that the Bush Administration "had Mr. Zarqawi in his sights for almost every day for a year before the invasion of Iraq and he didn't shoot because they were wining and dining the French in an effort to get them to assist us in the invasion of Iraq."[14]

Terrorist and guerrilla attacks

Assassination of Laurence Foley

Laurence Foley was a senior U.S. diplomat working for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Jordan. On October 28, 2002, he 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 USD$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.[15] Zarqawi was again sentenced in absentia in Jordan; this time, as before, his sentence was death.

Nicholas Berg

In May 2004, a videotape was released showing a group of five men beheading American civilian Nicholas Berg, who had been abducted and taken hostage in Iraq weeks earlier. The speaker on the tape, wielding the knife that killed Berg, is rumoured to be al-Zarqawi. He stated that the murder was in retaliation for US abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison (see Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal); CIA analysis of the voice claimed that it was Zarqawi's [16]. The CIA analysis failed to quell doubts about the validity of the claim because, among other reasons, the man wears a mask in the video and did not resemble Zarqawi in other ways. (see, for instance, this article in The Sydney Morning Herald.) Various Middle East correspondents/experts including CNN's Octavia Nasr have stated that the person talking on the Berg tape was not al-Zarqawi because he didn't speak with a Jordanian accent.

Other incidents

  • U.S. officials believe that Zarqawi trained others in the use of poison (ricin?[1]) for possible attacks in Europe, ran a "terrorist haven" in Kurdish northern Iraq, and organized the bombing of a Baghdad hotel.
  • United States officials blame Zarqawi for over 700 killings in Iraq during the invasion, mostly from bombings.
  • 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." Many observers do not believe that Zarqawi wrote the letter.
  • On July 11, 2004, a group reportedly led by Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for a July 8 mortar attack in Samarra, Iraq. Five American soldiers and one Iraqi soldier were killed.
  • Believed to have coordinated the infamous second battle of "Al Fallujah" (Operation Phantom Fury/Operation Al Fajr) in November 2004, fought in the battle himself, then slipped away from coalition forces.
  • Jordan accuses Zarqawi of plotting to release a chemical cloud in Amman. Men were arrested in Amman who purportedly were planning to release the chemical attack. He was convicted in absentia on March 20, 2005, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison in addition to his two death sentences for earlier crimes in Jordan.
  • Zarqawi is believed to have masterminded the 2005 bombings in Amman that killed about seventy people in three hotels. [3]
  • On April 25, 2006 a video appearing to show Zarqawi surfaced [17]. In the tape, the man says holy warriors are fighting on despite a three-year "crusade". US 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 US 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 God," 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 US 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 was unable to fire an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. Zarqawi was also shown to be wearing tennis shoes in the video. The aim of the video was to remove the myth surrounding Zarqawi and to question his prowess as a military leader.

Credibility questions

A U.S.PSYOP leaflet disseminated in Iraq shows al-Zarqawi caught in a rat trap. Text: "This is your future al-Zarqawi".

Some people have purported that Zarqawi's notoriety is the product of U.S. war propaganda designed to promote the image of a demonic enemy figure to help justify continued U.S. military operations in Iraq [18], perhaps with the tacit support of jihadi elements who wish to use him as a propaganda tool or as a distraction. [19] 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. [20]

One Sunni insurgent leader claimed on 11 December that "Zarqawi is an American, Israeli and Iranian agent who is trying to keep our country unstable so that the Sunnis will keep facing occupation." [21]

On February 18 2006, Shiite cleric Muqtada as-Sadr voiced similar concerns: "I believe he is fictitious. He is a knife or a pistol in the hands of the occupier. I believe that all three - the occupation, the takfir [i.e. the practice of declaring other Muslims to be heretics] supporters, and the Saddam supporters - stem from the same source, because the takfir supporters and the Saddam supporters are a weapon in the hands of America. America pins its crimes on them." [22]

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 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." [23]

Reported missing leg/death

Missing leg

Claims of harm to Zarqawi have 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 Baghdad in 2002 to have his leg amputated. On October 7, 2002, the day before Congress voted to give President Bush permission to invade Iraq, Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, that repeated this claim as fact. This was one of several of President Bush's primary 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 U.S. military officials in Baghdad" had come to believe that he still had his original legs. [24]. Knight Ridder later reported that the leg amputation was something "officials now acknowledge was incorrect," though it's possible this was merely a restatement of the Newsweek report.[12]

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.

Claims of death

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 [25]. 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. [26]

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 U.S. 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 an 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. saying that it was a pretext so they don't leave Iraq." [27]

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[28], with U.S. forces using DNA samples to identify the dead. [29] However, none of those remains belonged to him.

Reportedly captured and released

According to a CNN report dated December 15, 2005, [30], al-Zarqawi was captured by Iraqi forces sometime during 2004 and later released because his captors did not realize who he was. U.S. officials called the report "plausible" but refused to confirm it.

Death confirmed

Wikinews has related news:
File:Dead.jpg
Zarqawi Killed

At 6:15 p.m. local time (14:15 GMT/UTC, 10:15 AM EDT), June 7, 2006, Zarqawi, along with five others, including a woman, a child and the man who unwittingly led the Americans to him - his deputy and spiritual adviser, Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi, [31]was killed by two 500-pound (230kg) laser-guided bombs dropped by United States Air Force F-16 jets while attending a meeting in an isolated safehouse approximately 8 km (5 mi) north of Baqubah.[32] The joint task force had been tracking him for some time, and although there were some close calls, he had eluded them on many occasions. U.S. 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.[33] Jordanian intelligence reportedly helped to identify his location.[34]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.[35][36] They also confirmed the death of one of his key lieutenants, spiritual adviser Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman.[37]

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. [38] He was arrested hours after the Al Jazeera interview. [39] 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.[40]

File:Image0608-2020(TV41).jpg
Zarqawi Killed, BBC

Abu Abdulrahman al-Iraqi, the deputy of al-Zarqawi, 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."[41] In the statement, al-Iraqi vowed to continue the jihad in Iraq.

Alleged betrayal by al-Qaeda?

A day before Zarqawi was killed, a U.S. strategic analysis site [42] suggested that Zarqawi could have lost the trust of al-Qaeda due to his anti-Shia stance and the massacres of civilians allegedly committed in his name. In the afternoon of June 8, the day after Zarqawi's death, American ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalizad stated that he did not foresee a payout of the 25 million dollar bounty on Zarqawi's head because the decisive information on his whereabouts came from "al-Qaeda in Iraq" operatives already in U.S. custody.

References

  1. ^ "Al-Zarqawi declares war on Iraqi Shia". aljazeera.net. 2005-09-14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ "Purported bin Laden tape endorses al-Zarqawi". cnn.com. 2004-12-27. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ "Iraq backs Zarqawi wounded claim". BBC. 2005-05-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ "FBI Updates Most Wanted Terrorists and Seeking Information – War on Terrorism Lists" (Press release). FBI. February 24 2006. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ "Iraq Terror Chief Killed In Airstrike". CBS News. 2006-06-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ "Zarqawi and the 'al-Qaeda link'". BBC. 2003-02-05. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ a b "Profile: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi". BBC. 2005-11-10. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) Cite error: The named reference "bbc3" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  8. ^ ABCnews 610353
  9. ^ OReilly.com 18770
  10. ^ MSNBC.MSN 6189795
  11. ^ ABCnews 144396
  12. ^ a b commondreams.org 1005-01 Cite error: The named reference "commondreams" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  13. ^ khaleejtimes.com
  14. ^ abc.net 1627197
  15. ^ globalsecurity.org zarqawi
  16. ^ bbc 3712421
  17. ^ bbc 4944250
  18. ^ comw.org 0410zarqawi
  19. ^ exile.ru
  20. ^ telegraph 2002/10/04
  21. ^ yahoo.com 20051211
  22. ^ memri.org SD110006
  23. ^ washingintonpost.com 2006/04/09
  24. ^ msnbc.msn 4524563
  25. ^ msnbc.msn 4446084
  26. ^ lemonde.fr 689730
  27. ^ aljazeera C080950DF180
  28. ^ jpost.com
  29. ^ debka.com
  30. ^ cnn.com 2005 Dec. 15
  31. ^ "Deputy unwittingly led troops to al-Zarqawi". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 2006-06-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  32. ^ "Iraq Terror Chief Killed In Airstrike". CBS News. 2006-06-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  33. ^ "Iraq terrorist leader Zarqawi 'eliminated'". Guardian Unlimited. June 8, 2006.
  34. ^ "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed in air raid". Associated Press. June 8, 2006.
  35. ^ "Iraqi PM confirms Zarqawi death". CNN.com. 2006-06-08. Retrieved 2006-06-08.
  36. ^ "Zarqawi killed in Iraq air raid". BBC. June 8, 2006.
  37. ^ "Zarqawi death a 'significant blow' to al-Qaida". Guardian Unlimited. June 8, 2006.
  38. ^ "Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi Killed in Air Raid". AP News. 2006-06-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  39. ^ http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200407/s1148216.htm
  40. ^ "Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi Killed in Air Raid". AP News. 2006-06-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  41. ^ "Qaeda in Iraq confirms Zarqawi's death - Web site". Reuters. June 8, 2006.
  42. ^ "Zarqawi Scheduled for Martyrdom - Web site". StrategyPage. June 8, 2006.
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