Truthdig - The Many Faces of Abu Musab al Zarqawi

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Nir Rosen is a fellow at the New America Foundation and a free-lance writer. His book on postwar Iraq, "In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq" was published by Free Press in May 2006.

His articles from Iraq and elsewhere are available on www.nirrosen.com.

PHOTO

Jordanian-born terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al Zarqawi in photos distributed by the U.S. military. The left and middle are undated; the right-hand photo was taken shortly after his June 8 death, caused by an American airstrike. Photos: AP

The Many Faces of Abu Musab al Zarqawi

A Dig led by Nir Rosen

(Page 3)

Shortly after his release under an amnesty in 1999, Zarqawi left for Pakistan, where he was arrested and temporarily held, before making it to Afghanistan with his key followers. (Zarqawi had been influenced by the Egyptian jihadist groups such as Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Group, which held that the leader of any jihadist group should be based outside of the country in order to avoid harassment by the security forces. Maqdasi also favored the move, but primarily because, unlike Zarqawi, he opposed conducting operations within Jordan—a disagreement that would prove momentous years later.)

In Afghanistan Zarqawi found both Al Qaeda and the Taliban insufficiently extreme for him. Zarqawi criticized Osama bin Ladin for not calling Arab governments infidels and attacking them. For Zarqawi, the near enemy was the priority, while for Bin Ladin the far enemy was the priority. Zarqawi was such a strict Salafi that he condemned the Taliban for lack of piety. He criticized them for not sufficiently imposing Sharia and for recognizing the United Nations, an infidel organization. As a result he condemned Al Qaeda for associating with the Taliban and established his own camp in the western Afghan city of Herat, near the border with Iran.

When the U.S. struck Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, Zarqawi made his way through Iran to autonomous Kurdistan in northern Iraq. This is a point especially worth noting. The Bush administration claimed Zarqawi’s presence in Iraq was proof of an Al Qaeda connection, but in fact Zarqawi linked up with the terrorist group Ansar al Islam in a region of Iraq outside of Saddam Hussein’s reach.

When he arrived in northern Iraq in 2002, Zarqawi was still virtually unknown outside his native Jordan. But the mere fact of his physical presence in Iraq may have been enough to earn him his first bout of international notoriety: In his February 2003 speech to the United Nations, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell named Zarqawi as an associate of Bin Laden’s in Iraq—a report that infamously turned out to be false, but one that nevertheless had the effect of turning Zarqawi into an overnight jihadist celebrity.

He apparently laid low during the war’s major ground offensives, but as soon as Saddam was removed from power on April 9, 2003 and Bush declared America’s “mission accomplished,” Zarqawi
had a new failed state in which to operate. He descended into Iraq proper and began to organize the disparate foreign fighters who had come to fight with Saddam’s army against the American invasion. Shocked by the disappearance of Saddam’s army and the ease of the American victory, these Arab fighters from Syria, Jordan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia began casting about for a leader. They found one in Zarqawi, who was, by most accounts, charismatic and fearless.

It took further public relations efforts by the United States to transform Zarqawi into who he became.

Although he claimed responsibility for several significant attacks, such as the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad’s Canal Hotel and the assassination of Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq leader Muhamad Bakir al Hakim, Zarqawi and his foreign fighters were a numerically insignificant proportion of the anti American fighters. It took further public relations efforts by the United States to transform Zarqawi into who he became.

Intent on denying that there was a popular Iraqi resistance to the American project in Iraq, the U.S. military appeared to blame nearly every attack on Zarqawi and his foreign fighters. And for a while it seemed every car accident in Baghdad was Zarqawi’s fault. The truth was that much of Iraq’s Sunni population, alienated by the Americans who removed them from power and targeted them en masse during raids, supported and participated in the anti-American resistance. Even many Shias claimed resistance. Muqtada al-Sadr, the most powerful and popular single individual leader in Iraq, led several “intifadas,” or uprisings, against the Americans in the spring and summer of 2004 (and his men still rest on their laurels, claiming they too took part in the Mukawama, or resistance).

But by blaming Zarqawi for everything, the Americans turned him into a myth—the man who was everywhere and nowhere at once. Aspiring jihadis throughout the Arab world ate it up and flocked to join his ranks—or at least send money. Zarqawi was the one defying the Americans, something their own weak leaders in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and elsewhere could not do, having sold out to Western interests long ago.

In October 2004, Iraqi intelligence claimed that Zarqawi’s group consisted of 1,000 to 1,500 fighters, foreign and Iraqi. Zarqawi’s inner circle was made up of his close friends, all of whom were non-Iraqi. Their plan, as evidenced by their statements and their tactics, was to turn Iraq into hell for all its residents, to prevent an elected government from taking power and to create a civil war between Sunnis and the hated Shias. Zarqawi’s group was responsible for many of the gruesome videotaped beheadings of foreigners and Iraqis accused of collaborating with the occupation. Their bombs, planted in civilian areas or carried by suicide agents, slaughtered masses of Shias as well.

In his various written and taped communiqués Zarqawi elaborated on his ideology. He condemned the people who “held the stick in the middle.” They were not fighting for their nation. They were waiting for the fight to end so they could join the victor. Godly people, he wrote, were carrying the flag of Islam high and raising their heads in humiliating times. Their brave feet remain steadfast in the hot desert sands, and when all doors were closed to them on Earth, many doors in heaven were opened. Their belief made them strong, he argued, and they thought not of defeat despite limitless oppression. Dog-like foreigners controlled their homelands, and the solution that people were searching for was jihad in the path of God. Belief in God could restore the caliphate, he insisted; it could open to the Muslims “the gates of Rome, the White House, the Kremlin and London.” God would help them fight the hypocrites, Crusaders and Jews. Zarqawi prayed to God to give his believers success on Earth, to help the mujahedin assemble, to protect them and give them victory over the infidels.

Zarqawi denounced Muslims who criticized the beheading of the young American Nicholas Berg. They were cowards who were not fighting the infidel and did not know how glorious it felt to fight jahiliya (pre-Islamic ignorance). Zarqawi lamented that the nation of Islam was being tortured in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Indonesia and Chechnya and yet all it had done was weep and protest peacefully. These demonstrations had done nothing for Afghanistan, and now Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban, was hiding in the mountains. The Muslim nation did nothing to defend the chastity of the women of Sarajevo, Indonesia, Palestine and Iraq. Zarqawi swore to God that as long as he and his men had dignity and honor they would not sleep or spend time with their wives while these other Muslim women were under attack.

Next Page: Zarqawi Unites With Another Terrorist Mastermind

1 2 3 4 5 NEXT PAGE >>>

Dig last updated on Jun. 10, 2006

TAGS: abu al-zarqawi killed musab nir qaeda rosen terrorist zarqawi

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By clxgid, November 5, 2008 at 1:31 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I am going to recommend to others the reading of this article , it appears to have many facts and interesting analysis which should be considered when judging the conflicts in the Middle East . Indeed , “if Americans only knew” .

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By Islamud-din, September 2, 2007 at 4:16 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

yur are the best muxhahid Ebu musab al zarkavi rihimullah.. strong men .., Lowe you for the snake of Allah Fisabillilah , hope to meet you in jannah Aminn

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By Shenonymous, June 7, 2007 at 10:26 am #

Lefty, your eyesight is very good! Nevertheless, the world didn’t really need Zarqawi and doesn’t need bin Laden, who should have been exterminated over four years ago!

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By jordan walker, May 9, 2007 at 2:34 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

i really think that genocide is wrong and that al zarqawi needed to die

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By Ken Dryden, February 27, 2007 at 5:29 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I’ve also enjoyed the article for what Felicity in the first comment calls the author’s commenting on the great complexity & competing multi-facetedness of the insurgency in Irag, noting Zarqawi’s somewhat minor role in it, despite what certain media outlets and government spokespeople would have one believe.

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By morgan-lynn lamberth, February 12, 2007 at 4:21 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Thomas Cooper plagiarizes my points, it seems, or else another great mind!Read Bishop Spong’s"Why Christianity must change or die,p152.As the song says , he is almost persuaded- to be an atheist!

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By Thoasm Cooper, February 11, 2007 at 4:17 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Turning the other cheek can lead to more violence. Forget Yeshua’s worthless words and use common sense. The god of the New Fables-Yeshua - is the Yahwe of the Old Fables. We rationalists use the morality Michael Shermer des cribes in “The Science of Good and Evil.” Ghandi and King did not go against such evil. Errantists just gloss over the n onsense of their Fables.

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By Naturally Abrasive, June 26, 2006 at 6:36 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Let’s congratulate ourselves… We are winning the war that Iran could not on Iran’s behalf.
Too bad we’ll never benefit from it. My heart goes out to the families of those young soldiers (many not old enough to drink) who died in Bush’s crusade.

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By Henry James, June 18, 2006 at 1:21 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

2006-06-15 George Will on Zarqawi’s death

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By Bob Who, June 13, 2006 at 11:47 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Look at his eyebrows how high they are the other 22 picture eyebrows closer to the eyes !!
my 6 cents ?>:”

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By FreeDem, June 12, 2006 at 7:45 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Comment #11569 by Lefty on 6/11 at 8:15 pm
“Self defense against people who strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up in order to target innocent civilians is not even murder, much less a holocaust.”

Simple populatioin dynamics will force a decision, either a secular state, or an increasingly harsh religious one. If the latter there is only one possible “Final solution” either wholesale or in drawn out bits. Otherwise oppressed angry people will continue to strap on bombs.

If you blame all people who did not strap on the bombs for those who did, you create your own enemy faster than they destroy themselves. The Isrealies suffer from the thoughtlessness of their founders and have no honorable solution to their problem. Acting on religious beliefs, regardless of religion, can have that effect. As Americans in Iraq, are finding also.

_on Topic_ great article, I would like to see more detail of the realities of the situation there. The complexities have grown more important in the last few years, and no solution can be discovered untill they are understood.

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By Voltaire, June 12, 2006 at 2:32 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Tarpley/0606/20060610_Sat_Tarpley2.mp3

I was listening to Ralph Shoneman on Tarpley’s World Crisis radio. He cited some source that said that Zarqawi was already dead in 2004. Also the video that showed “Zarqawi” executing Nick Berg revealed a man wearing US issue army boots and a gold jewelry. In the Middle East only women wear gold jewelry. On top of that, Zarqawi’s death photo shows a remarkably whole corpse. The US media said that two 500 pound bombs were dropped on Zarqawi’s house. Don’t you think the corpse would look like a crispy coal after that? With people like Gore Vidal on board, I would think Truth Dig could be more skeptical.

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By Lefty, June 11, 2006 at 11:15 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Comment #11526 by July Canute on 6/11 at 6:01 am

“The actual terrorists on this planet are George Bush and the vile Jewish zionist neo-cons like Bill Kristol and Olmert Emud. It is shocking and uncivilized to plaster those photos on your website. This man is a creation of a zionist holocaust and people who have stolen the White House. . . .”

Did you mean Ehud Olmert? I would agree that there is probably no bigger fool in the world than a right wing Jew. And yes, BushCo are fascists, liars, crooks, torturers and murderers. But to even utter the term “zionist holocaust” is beyond outrageous. It’s absurd! The holocaust was an attempted extermination of the entire Jewish population of the world. Zionists haven’t tried, nor would they ever try, to exterminate anyone. Self defense against people who strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up in order to target innocent civilians is not even murder, much less a holocaust.

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By Lefty, June 11, 2006 at 3:19 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Comment #11512 by G-Delic on 6/10 at 6:16 pm

“I agree with everything above but the Fundamentalist Christian part. I think by stereotyping a group people rather then individual opinions, its just trying to futher perpetuate the blame game. This is not a Fundamentalist Christian crusade of revenge against Muslim Terrorists. I find myself on many occasions similarly saying why do Muslims do all the terrorist acts, beheadings, suicide bombings? . . .”

Fundamentalist Christians have a long history (including very recent history) and tradition of as bad or worse.

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By William Day, June 11, 2006 at 2:52 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Let me say first that getting rid of the likes of this man is welcome news! But, let me be cynical for a moment; two 500 lb bombs, both making a direct hit on the house, and leaving total demolition of the house and a multi-yard crater below the house and he lived through it? And the body was retrieved totally intact? Hmmmmmm glad he’s gone, but it leaves a lot of questions unanswered at best!

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By Snobar, June 11, 2006 at 10:18 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

It’s a bliss for an old journalist to read such well researched and balanced pieces as this. My only sorrow is that it probably will be read by too few, and definitively not by the ones who ought to…

But let me also turn your attention to another piece of journalism which may shed some light on the relationship between Zarqawi and the Bush administration. Greg Palast wrote it, and you may read it if you click on my signature.

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By July Canute, June 11, 2006 at 9:01 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

The actual terrorists on this planet are George Bush and the vile Jewish zionist neo-cons like Bill Kristol and Olmert Emud. It is shocking and uncivilized to plaster those photos on your website. This man is a creation of a zionist holocaust and people who have stolen the White House.

Why don’t you plaster photos of America on this page. Ask not for whom the bell tolls because it tolls for US.

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By Tony Waters, June 11, 2006 at 12:04 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Let me get this straight:

1. Zarqawi was betrayed by someone(s) close to him.

2. Quite possibly, the betrayal was orchestrated by Bin Laden.

3. The U.S. offered a $25 million reward for information leading to…

4. If they pay it, will the U.S. be funding Bin Laden again?

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By Lefty, June 10, 2006 at 10:00 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I don’t see much difference between fundamentalist christians and fundamentalist muslims.

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By G-Delic, June 10, 2006 at 9:16 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I agree with everything above but the “Fundamentalist Christian” part. I think by stereotyping a group people rather then individual opinions, it’s just trying to futher perpetuate the blame game. This is not a Fundamentalist Christian crusade of revenge against Muslim Terrorists. I find myself on many occasions similarly saying why do Muslims do all the terrorist acts, beheadings, suicide bombings? And it’s the easiest that way to rationalize the terrible events so that I can justify why the things that are happening are. But I have to actively fight the thoughts that are so motivated by anger from injustice and remember that when we remove the political, ethnic, and cultural facades, we’re all human beings.

We have families we love dearly, we feel hurt, we feel pain, as well as happiness and laughter. At the core we are unique individuals and that’s how we ought to treat each other.

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By Tony Wicher, June 10, 2006 at 9:07 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

“It took further public relations efforts by the United States to transform Zarqawi into who he became.” And what did he become? A one-year wonder, conscious of the fame conferred upon him by American procaganda, who ended up making a Jihadi’s Funniest Home Video, starring him as a fat clown, and getting righteously blown away, for which even bin Laden and Zawahiri can be happy along with the rest of us, except his family and Michael Berg, I suppose. No, wait! News flash! His family IS happy now that he is with his 72 virgins, so that leaves only Michel Berg.

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By Joseph Urban, June 10, 2006 at 9:02 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Looking forward to reading Mr. Rosen’s newly published book, In the Belly of the Green Bird.

Joseph Urban

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By Chris Golson, June 10, 2006 at 8:03 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Good article and excellent background information.

Wasn’t he also the individual who beheaded Americans on video and broadcast this on the internet?
If not, then this should be corrected in the backgrounder. But if so, it certainly is a measure of the man’s brutality- exactly something which should be passed over.
What am I missing here?

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By Darrel King, June 10, 2006 at 7:29 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Hi Mr Rosen,
Thank you so much for your story. I thought it was very interesting and well written.

It’s great to know how everything unfolded and as you said America helped make him what he was or gave him his power at first.
I will pass your story on to some of my friends because everyone should read it.

Good luck in your future writings.

Darrel King

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By Morgan-LynnLamberth, June 10, 2006 at 6:12 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Turning the other cheek ,could lead to death.To give the robber more is just plain dumb.Errantists read into Yeshua.s nonsense what they will.And Yeshua was Yahwe of the Deluge and the plagues and all that genocide. Subscribe to the rational moralilty of Michael Shermers’s ’” The Science of Good and Evil.” Ghandi and King did not face a Hitler or a Pol Pot. Peter Beinart knows rational liberalism. Arthur Caplan and Paul Kurtz also know rational morality.

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By Morgan-LynnLamberth, June 10, 2006 at 6:00 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Turning the other cheek can lead to more violence. Forget Yeshua’s worthless words and use common sense .[Who gives the robber more?] The god of the New Fables-Yeshua - is the Yahwe of the Old Fables. We rationalists use the morality Michael Shermer des cribes in “The Science of Good and Evil.” Ghandi and King did not go against such evil. Errantists just gloss over the n onsense of their Fables.

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By Quy Tran, June 10, 2006 at 5:57 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Thanks to Zarqawi’s cadaver Bush’s ratings have been drastically improved from -0 to +0. Congratulations !

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By Morgan-LynnLamberth, June 10, 2006 at 5:15 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Turning the other cheek can lead to more violence. Forget Yeshua’s worthless words and use common sense .[Who gives the robber more?] The god of the New Fables-Yeshua - is the Yahwe of the Old Fables. We rationalists use the morality Michael Shermer des cribes in “The Science of Good and Evil.” Ghandi and King did not go against such evil. What ludicrity! Errantists just gloss over hte nonsense of their Fables.

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By David Hahn, June 10, 2006 at 4:33 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Now we are a nation of assassins and torturers (to say nothing of the many thousands of civilians—and our own military—who have died for this illegal war).

Hats off to the blood-thirsty press.

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By Umar Ibrahim, June 10, 2006 at 4:15 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

May Allah accept him as matyr
That is his good end
now the good ones have departed leaving behind the evil ones(Bush and others)

We are waiting the bad end of the evil ones

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By David, June 10, 2006 at 4:15 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

In the end,there is no martyrdom,no paradise and no god(s).
If logic and reason had any part in religion,what then would become of faith?

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By felicity smith, June 10, 2006 at 1:17 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Fascinating article. Thanks. If nothing else it erases the Bush administration’s erroneous black and white picture of the Middle East and the world of Islam replacing it with a multi-colored, multi-shaded picture of huge complexity. One thing, seemingly unrelated, that jumped out at me was the statement that American forces were in Saudi Arabia to protect it from Saddam, which led me to wonder if the Gulf War and the Iraqi War were waged partly to defend Saudi Arabia. The long-time close ties between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family would certainly support the possibility.

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By Hilding Lindquist, June 10, 2006 at 12:44 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

It is interesting—to say the least—that people in what many of them call a Christian nation (USA) actually think that the death of a leader at the hands of an enemy will quell an insurgency. Duh! Hasn’t history taught us anything?!

I mean, sure it might happen ... that is the insurgency might start to wane ... I don’t know, but I doubt it. We haven’t given the Muslim street a whole bunch of alternatives to sectarian violence a la strong militias to provide security for their families.

And my view of the truth is that if Iraq stabilizes now ... it will be a huge victory for Iran.

I consider Zarqawi to have been both our enemy and an enemy of the values and pricnciples to which I subscribe. But as Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr taught us so eloquently, violence begats violence.

And the lesson ascribed to Jesus is that the stonger person must offer peace, and the children of God—by definition—are always the strongest. Turning the other cheek is not an act of weakness. This idea was the sea-change from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

It’s amazing how Fundamentalist Christians (in bed with the Neocons) just don’t get it. They are all stuck in the Old Testament with Joshua at Jericho.

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In the Belly of the Green Bird

By Nir Rosen

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