Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi

Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh (Arabic: أحمد فضيل النزال الخلايله)
October 30, 1966 – June 7, 2006
A 'wanted' poster distributed by the U.S. Army.
Place of birth	Amman, Jordan
Place of death	Baquba, Iraq
Allegiance	Islamism
Years of service	1989–2006
Unit	Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Battles/wars	Iraqi insurgency

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (Arabic: أبومصعب الزرقاوي, ’Abū Muṣ‘ab az-Zarqāwī, Abu Musab from Zarqa)) (October 30, 1966 – June 7, 2006), born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh (Arabic: أحمد فضيل النزال الخلايله, ’Aḥmad Faḍīl an-Nazāl al-Ḫalāyla) was a Jordanian Muslim who ran a militant training camp in Afghanistan. He became known after being blamed by United States and Jordanian officials for a series of bombings and attacks. He formed the organization Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad while he was in Europe,^{[citation needed]} and then eventually went to Afghanistan.

He was believed to have led al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, which allegedly later became the group called Al-Qaeda in Iraq, until his death in June 2006. Zarqawi allegedly took responsibility, on several audio- and videotapes, for numerous acts of violence in Iraq including suicide bombings and hostage executions. A militant Islamist, Zarqawi belonged to the Salafi movement in Sunni Islam.^{[citation needed]}

Zarqawi opposed the presence of U.S. and Western military forces in the Islamic world and opposed the West's support for and the existence of Israel. In September 2005, he reportedly declared "all-out war" on Shia in Iraq in response to the Shia government offensive on the Sunni town of Tal Afar.^[1] and is believed responsible for dispatching numerous suicide bombers throughout Iraq, especially to American soldiers and to areas with large concentrations of Shia militias. These bombers carried out an extensive series of attacks against Americans and Shia targets.

Biography

Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh (Arabic: أحمد فضيل النزال الخلايله, ’Aḥmad Faḍīl an-Nazāl al-Ḫalāyla), 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 "man from Zarqa". Zarqawi was a native of the Jordanian city of Zarqa, located approximately 21 kilometers (13 miles) northeast of the capital Amman.^[2][3] 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. He was active as a militant in Afghanistan, Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere.

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.^[4] It is thought that he met and befriended Osama bin Laden while there. Instead of fighting, he became a reporter for an Islamist newsletter.^[5] 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 1992, and spent five years in a Jordanian prison for conspiring to overthrow the monarchy to establish an Islamic caliphate.^[4] 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. According to some reports,^{[attribution needed]} Zarqawi became a feared leader among inmates there. In prison he met and befriended Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein, who, in 2005, published a book on Zarqawi and al-Qaeda's strategy.

Upon his release from prison in 1999, Zarqawi was involved in an attempt to blow up the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, where many Israeli and American tourists lodged.^[6] He fled Jordan and traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border. In Afghanistan, Zarqawi established a militant training camp near Herat, near the Iranian border.^[7] The training camp specialized in poisons and explosives.^[8] According to Jordanian officials and court testimony by jailed followers of Zarqawi in Germany, Zarqawi met in Kandahar and Kabul with Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders after travelling to Afghanistan.^[6] He asked them for assistance and money to set up his own training camp in Herat.^[9] With al-Qaeda's support, the camp opened and soon served as a magnet for Jordanian militants.^[6]

Jordanian and European intelligence agencies claim that Zarqawi formed the group Jund al-Sham in 1999 with $200,000 of start up money from Osama bin Laden.^[10] 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 group of the same name claimed responsibility for a bombing in Doha, Qatar.^[11] 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 September 11 attacks, Zarqawi again traveled to Afghanistan and joined Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters resisting the U.S.-led invasion.^[12] He was allegedly^{[attribution needed]} wounded in a U.S. bombardment. He moved to Iran to re-organize al-Tawhid, his former militant organization. In the summer of 2002, Zarqawi was reported^{[attribution needed]} to have settled in northern Iraq, where he joined the Islamist Ansar al-Islam group that fought against the Kurdish-nationalist forces in the region. He reportedly^{[attribution needed]} became a leader in the group, although his leadership role has not been established. According to Perspectives on World History and Current Events (PWHCE), a not-for-profit project based in Melbourne, Australia, "Zarqawi was well positioned to lead the Islamic wing of the insurgency when the March 2003 invasion took place. Whether he remained in Ansar al-Islam camps until April 2003 or laid the preparations for the war during extensive visits to Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle is uncertain, but clearly he emerged as an important figure in the insurgency soon after the Coalition invasion."^[13] The possibility of Zarqawi's presence in Iraq before March 2003 (according to a Bill O'Reilly article, as advanced above^{[citation needed]}) was used by the Bush Administration to justify the Iraq invasion, although recently declassified Pentagon documents reveal that there was no substantial link between al-Qaeda and Iraq.^[14]

Zarqawi is believed to have had two wives. His first wife, Oum Mohammed, was a Jordanian woman who was around 40 years of age when Zarqawi died in June 2006. She lived in Zarqa, Jordan along with their four children, including a 7-year-old son, Musab.^[15] 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 God, I will not leave Iraq until victory or martyrdom'" she quoted al-Zarqawi as saying.^[16] 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 Baqr al-Hakim, the Iraqi Shia leader.^[10] She bore him a child when she was 15 and was killed along with Zarqawi and their child, Abdul Rahman. Also killed was a five year old unidentified girl.^[17][18]

Zarqawi was the most wanted man in Jordan and Iraq,^[19] having participated in or masterminded a number of violent actions against Iraqi, Jordanian and United States targets. The U.S. government offered $25 million U.S. dollars 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.^[20]

On June 7 2006, Zarqawi was killed 1.5 miles (2.41 km) north of Hibhib, near the city of Baquba, Iraq, by a United States air strike, along with as many as eight other people, including women and children.^[21] He died from internal bleeding at 7:04/05pm, 50–55 minutes after the air strike, of injuries sustained in the bomb blasts.^[22] 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.^[23]

As of October 12, 2006, the FBI had not removed^{[citation needed]} the profile of the deceased al-Zarqawi, several months after his confirmed death.

Terrorist attacks

Attacks outside Iraq

Laurence Foley is alleged to have been murdered by men hired by Zarqawi.

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 Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman in 1999 because it was frequented by many Israeli and American tourists.^[6] 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 U.S. dollars 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.^[24] Zarqawi was again sentenced in absentia in Jordan; this time, as before, his sentence was death.^[10]

Zarqawi was also blamed for a series of deadly bomb attacks in Casablanca, Morocco in 2003.^[25] U.S. officials believe that Zarqawi trained others in the use of poison (ricin^[26]) for possible attacks in Europe. Zarqawi was also accused of planning to attack a NATO summit in June of 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.^[27] On April 26 2004, Jordanian authorities announced they had broken up an alleged al-Qaeda plot to use chemicals weapons in Amman. Among the alleged 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 said, they seized 20 tons of chemicals, including blistering agents and nerve gas,^[28] and numerous explosives. Also seized were three trucks equipped with specially modified plows, apparently designed to crash through security barricades.^[29] Jordanian state television aired a videotape of four men admitting they were part of the plot. One of the alleged conspirators, Azmi Al-Jayousi, said that he was acting on the orders of Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi.^[30] 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 U.S. dollars, 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 security officials say was headed by al-Zarqawi and linked to al Qaeda.^[31] Zarqawi was believed to have masterminded the 2005 Amman bombings that killed about seventy people in three hotels, including several officials of the Palestinian Authority and members of a Chinese defense delegation.^[32]

Attacks inside Iraq

Before the invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi ran a "terrorist haven" in Kurdish northern Iraq, and organized the bombing of a Baghdad hotel.^[33] 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."^[34]

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 CIA claimed that the speaker on the tape wielding the knife that killed Berg was al-Zarqawi. The speaker states that the murder was in retaliation for US abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison (see Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal).^[35] However, the CIA analysis failed to quell doubts about the validity of the claim because the man wears a mask in the video and did not resemble Zarqawi in other ways.^[36] Various Middle East correspondents and experts, including CNN's Octavia Nasr, have stated that the person talking on the Berg tape was not al-Zarqawi because he did not speak with a Jordanian accent. Following the death of al-Zarqawi, CNN spoke with Nicholas' 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.^[37] Zarqawi continued his campaign to behead hostages such as when he personally beheaded the British hostage Ken Bigley.^[38]

United States officials also implicated Zarqawi for over 700 killings in Iraq during the invasion, mostly from bombings.^[39] Since March of 2004, that number rose to the thousands.^[40] 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.^[41] Zarqawi's biggest 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.^[42] 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.^[43] 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.^[44]

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 God."^[45]

On April 25 2006 a video appearing to show Zarqawi surfaced.^[46] 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 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 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 fix a jam on his M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. Zarqawi was also shown to be wearing New Balance tennis shoes in the video, which contradicts his anti-American beliefs while indicating a lack of more rugged, durable boot.^[47] The aim of the video was to remove the myth surrounding Zarqawi and to question his prowess as a military leader.

Attempts to provoke U.S. attack on Iran

A document found in Zarqawi's safe house indicates that the group was trying to provoke the U.S. to attack Iran in order to reinvigorate the insurgency in Iraq and to weaken American forces in Iraq.^[48][49] "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.^[50]

Alleged links to al-Qaeda

After the 2001 war in Afghanistan, Zarqawi appeared on a U.S. list of most-wanted al-Qaeda terrorists still at large in early 2002.^[51] It was reported he received the equivalent of U.S. $5000 for his activities from Osama bin Laden.^{[citation needed]}

According to the Washington Post, he formally swore loyalty to bin Laden in October 2004 and changed the name of his Monotheism and Jihad network to "al-Qaeda in Iraq."^[52]

Pre U.S. Invasion of Iraq

Before the invasion of Afghanistan, Zarqawi was the leader of an Islamic militant group affiliated with 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.^[53] 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.^[54] 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.^[54]

Zarqawi's group continued to received funding from Osama bin Laden and pursued "a largely distinct, if occasionally overlapping agenda," according to The Washington Post.^[55] 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.^[56]

Nixon Center terrorism experts Robert S. Leiken and Steven Brooke explained that Zarqawi never meant to join al Qaeda. Even though he in fact did.^[57] Militants have explained that Tawhid was especially for Jordanians who did not want to join al Qaeda. Even a confessed Tawhid member told his interrogators that Zarqawi was against al Qaeda.^[57] Zarqawi's men "refused to march under the banner of another individual or group" recalls Nu'man bin-Uthman, a Libyan Islamist leader now living in London who was in contact with Zarqawi at the time.^[58] Shortly after 9/11, a fleeing Ramzi bin al-Shibh, one of the main plotters of the attacks, appealed to Tawhid operatives for a forged visa. He could not come up with ready cash. Told that he did not belong to Tawhid, he was sent packing and eventually into the arms of the Americans.

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 Duesseldorf.^[55]

At least five times, in 2000 and 2001, bin Laden called al-Zarqawi to come to Kandahar and pay bayat — take an oath of allegiance—to him. Each time, al-Zarqawi refused. Under no circumstances did he want to become involved in the battle between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. He also did not believe that either bin Laden or the Taliban was serious enough about jihad. 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.^[59] When Zarqawi finally did take the oath in October 2004, after eight months of negotiations.^[60]

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.^[61] 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."^[62]

Post U.S. Invasion of Iraq

During or shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Zarqawi returned to Iran, 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.^[58][63][64] 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.^[58] Consequentially, Zarqawi came to be recognized as the regional "emir" of Islamist terrorists in Iraq without having sworn fealty to bin Laden.^[58]

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."^[68] Since that time, Zarqawi had referred to his own organization as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad.

In May 2007, President 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," the president stated in a commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy. "Bin Laden emphasized that America should be Zarqawi's No.1 priority."^[69]

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, attacks in the United States.^[56] He established al-Qaeda's first military beachhead and training camps outside Afghanistan and by using the al-Qaeda name, Zarqawi bolstered his legitimacy and attracted media attention, as well as money and recruits.^[56] 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.^[56] But this relationship was proven to be fragile as Zarqawi angered al-Qaeda leaders by focusing attackings on Iraqi Shia's 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-Zawahiri, had written to Zarqawi, bluntly warning that Muslim public opinion was turning against him.^[56] 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."^[70]

U.S. officials' view on the alliance

In June 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld conceded that Zarqawi’s ties to Al Qaeda may have been much more ambiguous—and that he may have been more 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."^[71]

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 Ladin'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."^[72]

Alleged links to Saddam Hussein

On February 5, 2003, then Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the U.N. Security Council on the issue of Iraq. Regarding Zarqawi, Powell asserted that:

Abu Musab al Zarqawi allegedly recuperated in Baghdad after being wounded while fighting along with Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters resisting the United States invasion of Afghanistan.^[74] 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

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.^[74] 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 in an interview with Al-Hayat. Abudullah 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." King 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.^[75]

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."^[76]

Counterterrorism scholar Loretta Napoleoni quotes former Jordanian parliamentarian Layth Shubaylat, who was personally acquainted with both Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein:

U.S. 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 Saddam Hussein regime had harbored Zarqawi. A US official told Reuters 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."^[78] 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."^[79]

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."^[80]

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."^[82]

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.^[83] 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."^[84]

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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."^[85][86][87]

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.)"^[88]

In his book At the Center of the Storm, George Tenet writes:

"...by the spring and summer of 2002, more than a dozen al-Qa'ida-affiliated extremists converged on Baghdad, with apparently no harassment on the part of the Iraqi government. They found a comfortable and secure envirnonment in which they moved people and supplies to support Zarqawi's operations in northern Iraq."^[89]

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."^[90]

Arguments downplaying Zarqawi's importance

Some people have claimed that Zarqawi's notoriety was 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,^[91] perhaps with the tacit support of jihadi elements who wished to use him as a propaganda tool or as a distraction.^[92] 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.^[93] 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."^[94]

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.^[96] 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.^[96] 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."^[96] 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."^[96]

On July 4 2006, the US Ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad, in an interview with the BBC, said that "in terms of the level of violence, it (the death of al-Zarqawi) has not had any impact at this point" and that "...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.^[97]

On 8th of June 2006, on the BBC's Question Time, the Respect Party MP George Galloway referred to Zarqawi as 'a Boogeyman, built up by the Americans to try and perpretrate the lie that the resistance in Iraq are by foreigners, and that the mass of the Iraqi's are with the American and British occupation'.

On August 21, 2006, Jill Carroll, a journalist for the Christian Science Monitor, published part 6 of her story detailing her capitivity 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."^[98]

Pre-war opportunities to kill Zarqawi

According to NBC News, 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.^[99] 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.^[100]

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.^[101]

This claim was also corroborated by CENTCOM's Deputy Commander, Lt. 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."^[102]

Reports of Zarqawi's death, detention and injuries

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.^[103] On October 7 2002, the day before Congress voted to give President 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.^[104] 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.^[105] Knight Ridder later reported that the leg amputation was something "officials now acknowledge was incorrect."^[106]

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."^[107]

Claims of death

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

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.^[108] 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.^[109]

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.^[110] 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.^[110] 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."^[111]

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,^[112] with U.S. forces using DNA samples to identify the dead.^[113] However, none of those remains belonged to him.

Reportedly captured and released

According to a CNN report dated December 15 2005,^[114] 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 attempt to blow up the Jordanian mission in Baghdad in December.^[115] When Iraqi interrogators ask Mr. Shaiyah if he knows anything about the fate of the terrorist, the Saudi man gives a startling answer. "Do you know what has happened to Zarqawi and where he is?" an Iraqi investigator asked Mr. Shaiyah.^[115] He answered, "I don't know, but I heard from some of my mujahadeen brothers that Iraqi police had captured Zarqawi in Fallujah."^[115] 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's death