Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Jonathan L. Snow                                                                                                                                                                                                              May 20, 2004

• On Saturday, May 8, 2004, the body of Nicholas Berg, an American civilian working on reconstruction projects in Iraq, was found by a US Army patrol on a roadside near Baghdad.
• Three days later, a video showing the gruesome decapitation of Berg appeared on an al-Qaeda linked website.  The video and website claim that the individual speaking on the tape and violently killing Berg is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a well known terrorist leader.
• The CIA has since stated that there is a “high probability” that the assassin was Zarqawi.

• Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, A.K.A. Fedel Nazzel Khalayleh, is a Palestinian born in Jordan.  He is from the Beni Hassan tribe, a Bedouin clan found in many countries of the Middle East.
• Zarqawi has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East.  His many connections in the region come from family ties and from his time leading a group of “Afghan Arabs,” who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980’s.  It was during the 1980’s that Zarqawi probably first came into contact with Osama bin Laden, another Jihadi leader in Afghanistan.
• He helped to lead Jihadi attacks against American forces in Afghanistan during 2001-2002.  He reportedly lost a leg in battle during March 2002.  He reportedly traveled to Iraq for medical treatment, where he received a prosthetic limb in May 2002.
• Zarqawi has been implicated in terrorist activity worldwide.  Some of his high profile attacks have allegedly included the bombings of Turkish synagogues in November 2003, a series of suicide bombings in Casablanca in May 2003, attacks against Shi’a worshippers in Baghdad and Karbala in March 2004 which killed well over a hundred people, and the Madrid attacks on March 11, 2004.  He has also been implicated in a foiled chemical weapons attack against Jordan’s secret service headquarters in April 2004 and in a plot to bomb the upcoming NATO summit in Istanbul at the end of June 2004, which will be attended by President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and French President Jacques Chirac.
• Jordanian authorities have said Zarqawi was behind the assassination of US diplomat Lawrence Foley in Amman, Oct. 2002.
• Zarqawi is reputedly a specialist in chemical and biological weapons (which are considered Weapons of Mass Destruction) and has been connected to many failed chemical attacks worldwide, including a high profile case in London involving the poison ricin.  The Jordan plot of April 2004, according to Jordanian authorities, was to have included a combination of 71 lethal chemicals, including nerve gas, blistering agents, and choking agents. Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the unsuccessful attack in an audio tape, but denied that it was to include chemical weapons, claiming “if we did possess it (chemical weapons), we wouldn’t hesitate one second to use it to hit Israeli cities, such as Eilat and Tel Aviv.”
• In the autumn of 2001, terrorists aligned with Zarqawi, in an incident reminiscent of the Nick Berg case, beheaded Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga (soldiers).

• Zarqawi has been named as the leader of Jund al-Shams (which operates primarily in Jordan and Syria) and al-Tawhid (Islamic “Unity” group, a loosely affiliated group working against the Jordanian government and “Jews”).  Both terrorist groups are allegedly linked to al-Qaeda.
• Zarqawi also has helped train terrorists at a remote training camp in Iraqi Kurdistan, close to the Iranian border. The camp was run by Ansar al-Islam, a terrorist group with ties to al-Qaeda. Terrorists trained at the camp have been arrested in Britain, France, Georgia, and Chechnya planning chemical attacks.
• Early in 2004, intelligence officers working for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a pro-US Kurdish group, captured a Zarqawi associate, Hasan Ghul, who had in his possession a letter from Zarqawi to Osama bin Laden.  Ghul has been nicknamed “the Gatekeeper” for his ability to move people and money across borders in the Middle East and Africa.  The captured letter outlines Zarqawi’s plan to provoke sectarian violence in Iraq as a means of undermining Coalition attempts to foster democracy and stability in the country.  The letter demonstrated Zarqawi’s hatred of Americans, Jews, Kurds, Sufis, and Shi’a Muslims and his belief that the transition to a sovereign Iraqi government is a critical period for his terrorist operations.
• While the exact relationship between Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden is ambiguous, the two share similar goals, methods and ideology.  Both are central figures in the Jihadi movement, which has become more decentralized and loosely connected as terrorist strongholds have been broken up by the War on Terrorism. Bin Laden has made it clear that he views Iraq as the central front in the war against the West.  As the key figure in the Jihadi movement in Iraq, Zarqawi is at the center of both the conflicts in Iraq and the global War against Terrorism.