Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi () (October 20, 1966 – June 7 2006) was a member of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a militant group in Iraq. . One or more individuals identifying themselves as Zarqawi took responsibility, on several audiotapes, for numerous acts of violence in Iraq and Jordan. These acts include suicide bombings and the killing of soldiers, police officers, and civilians.

As an Islamist identified with the Salafi movement, Zarqawi opposed the presence of United States 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 Muslims in Iraq and is believed responsible for dispatching numerous Al-Qaeda suicide bombers throughout Iraq, 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.

Brief background

Before the invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi was apparently not a member of the Al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden. He was, rather, the leader of an Islamic militant group loosely affiliated with Al-Qaeda. Zarqawi's group received funding from Osama bin Laden but pursued "a largely distinct, if occasionally overlapping agenda," according to The Washington Post. The Post article also discloses this revealing episode:

In the fall of 2001, according to German telephone wiretaps, Zarqawi grew angry when members of his Monotheism and Jihad cell in Germany told him they were also raising money 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 this month at a trial of four alleged Zarqawi operatives in Duesseldorf. "Just forget it!" ^*

More on Zarqawi's "arm's-length relationship with al-Qaeda" before the invasion can be seen here and here.

Later, after the U.S. led invasion, he became 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, a terrorist 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."

Zarqawi was the most wanted man in Jordan and Iraq, having participated in or masterminded a number of violent actions against Iraqi, Jordanian and United States targets. The 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.

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 airstrike. He died from internal bleeding at 7:04/05pm, 50-55 minutes after the airstrike, of injuries sustained in the bomb blasts. FBI tests later confirmed Zarqawi's identity. On June 15, 2006, it was confirmed that Egyptian Islamic Jihad militant Abu Ayyub al-Masri would succeed Zarqawi as head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Iraqi insurgency.

As was the case following Saddam Hussein's capture in December 2003, the death of al-Zarqawi has resulted in no change in violence in post-war Iraq.

Biography

Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh (), is believed to have been al-Zarqawi's real name. "Abu Musab" literally translates to "Musab's father", while the surname "al-Zarqawi" translates as "man from Zarqa". Zarqawi was a native of the Jordanian city of Zarqa, located approximately 21 kilometres northeast of the capital Amman.

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 allegedly a street thug. At the age of 17, he dropped out of school. According to vague Jordanian intelligence reports, Zarqawi was jailed briefly in the 1980s for drug possession and child molestation.CFR Profile. Subsequently, he was active as a militant in Afghanistan, Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere.

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 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. He was arrested for possessing explosives. Here, Al-Zarqawi supposedly memorized the Koran. (There is no record of him reciting it from memory). He attempted to draft his cellmates 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, Zarqawi became a feared leader among inmates there. 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, near the Iranian border. According to the Bush administration, the training camp specialized in poisons and explosives. 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. He asked them for assistance and money to set up his own training camp in Herat.

With al-Qaeda's support, the camp opened and soon served as a magnet for Jordanian militants

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. 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.

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 travelled to Afghanistan and joined Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters resisting the U.S.-led invasion. He was allegedly wounded in a U.S. bombardment. He moved to Iran to re-organize al-Tawhid, his former militant organization. Later, 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 the Kurdish-nationalist forces in the region. He reportedly became a leader in the group, although his leadership role has not been established.

Regarding Zarqawi's relationship with the government of Saddam Hussein, the reporting is contradictory. 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 probably more a rival of bin Laden's than an ally. ^*^*^*^*

A CIA report in late 2004 concluded that it had no evidence Saddam's government was involved in, or aware of, his Baghdad medical treatment, and that "There’s no conclusive evidence the Saddam Hussein regime had harbored Zarqawi." One U.S. official summarized the report: "The evidence is that Saddam never gave Zarqawi anything." Jordan's King Abdullah has said that Jordan had detailed information of where in Iraq Zarqawi lived. Jordan attempted to have Zarqawi extradited, "but our demands that the former regime Saddam Hussein hand him over were in vain," King Abdullah said. However, one of the Operation Iraqi Freedom documents that the Bush Administration has been releasing to the public indicates that Saddam had actually made the search for Zarqawi a “top priority” of his security forces, but that they were unsuccessful in locating him. ^*

In June, 2006, the Weekly Standard published an article that spread rapidly through the Internet. In it, writer and economist Thomas Joscelyn cites the claim by Dr. Muhammad al-Masari that Saddam's government actively aided Zarqawi prior to the invasion of Iraq, and that "Iraqi army commanders were ordered to become practicing Muslims and to adopt the language and spirit of the jihadis." Joscelyn concludes:

Just as Saddam ordered, many of Iraq's senior military and intelligence personnel joined or aided Zarqawi's jihad. Many of the more prominent supporters and members of Zarqawi's al Qaeda branch, in fact, came from the upper echelon of Saddam's government. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri (aka the "King of Clubs") and his sons allied with Zarqawi, as did members of Muhammad Hamza Zubaydi's (aka the "Queen of Spades") family. Zarqawi's allies included Muhammed Hila Hammad Ubaydi, who was an aide to Saddam's chief of staff of intelligence, and some of his more lethal operatives served as officers in Saddam's military, including Abu Ali, "Al-Hajji" Thamer Mubarak (whose sister attempted a martyrdom operation in Jordan), Abu-Ubaidah, and Abdel Fatih Isa.''

Whether this actually strengthens the case that Saddam collaborated with al-Qaeda is unclear. Former regime luminaries could easily have their own reasons for working with Zarqawi, not necessarily “Saddam’s orders.” Al-Masari is a Saudi exile who’s lived in London since 1994. His claims about Saddam’s policies are contrary to the intelligence community’s consensus, and the reliability of his sources is unknown to the public. Joscelyn's source, Abdel Bari Atwan, admits that al-Masari’s claims are “disputed by other commentators” and offers no reason that al-Masari should be believed and not these "other commentators." Reports of cooperation between Saddam and al-Qaeda aren’t new, but have been assessed by intelligence professionals as being “of varying reliability and contradictory.” [http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/2004_rpt/iraq-wmd-intell_chapter12-n.htm Salon.com:

Former CIA counterterrorism chief Cannistraro explains that hundreds, if not thousands, of raw reports from first-, second- and third-hand sources flood into the CIA offices around the world every day. But these are of little or no use until they can be analyzed. "The problem with raw intelligence is you can cherry-pick it," he says. "It's like having the Bible in your hand; you can pick and choose individual passages to prove almost any point."^*

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. The council reportedly made its decision in an effort to convince other countries to join the US in a coalition against Iraq. "People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of pre-emption against terrorists," said former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.

In May 2006, former CIA official Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA's bin Laden unit for six years before resigning in 2004, corroborated this. Paraphrasing his remarks, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) stated Scheuer claimed that "the United States deliberately turned down several opportunities to kill terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the lead-up to the Iraq war." ABC added that "a plan to destroy Zarqawi's training camp in Kurdistan was abandoned for diplomatic reasons." Scheuer explained that "the reasons the intelligence service got for not shooting Zarqawi was simply that the President and the National Security Council decided it was more important not to give the Europeans the impression we were gunslingers" in an effort to win support for ousting Saddam Hussein.

This claim was also corroborated by CENTCOM's Deputy Commander, 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 unleash a chemical reaction: "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."^*

Zarqawi is believed to have had two wives. Al-Zarqawi had married his second wife Isra, when she was 14 and she bore him a child when she was 15. Al Zarqawi along with his wife, Isra (then 16), and their son Abdul Rahman Zarqawi (then 18 months) were killed in the airstrike on June 7 2006. Also killed was a five year old unidentified girl.

Al-Zarqawi’s second wife Isra, in her late teens, and their 18-month-old baby, Abdul Rahman, died in the strike, Jordanian officials told The Times. Isra 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.

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. "The question remains, how to draw the Americans into fighting a war against Iran? It is not known whether American is serious in its animosity towards Iraq, 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 6 ways to incite war between the two nations. Iraqi national security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie said the document, shows al-Qaeda in Iraq is in "pretty bad shape." He added that "we believe that this is the beginning of the end of al-Qaeda in Iraq."

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. Zarqawi was again sentenced in absentia in Jordan; this time, as before, his sentence was death.

Murder of 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 states 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. 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. (See this article in The Sydney Morning Herald.) 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, Michael Berg, who stated that al-Zarqawi's killing would lead to further vengeance and was not a cause for rejoicing.

Other incidents

U.S. officials believe that Zarqawi trained others in the use of poison (ricin) for possible attacks in Europe, ran a "terrorist haven" in Kurdish northern Iraq, and organized the bombing of a Baghdad hotel.

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.

United States officials implicate Zarqawi for over 700 killings in Iraq during the invasion, mostly from bombings.

According to the United States State Department, Zarqawi was responsible for the Canal Hotel bombing of the United Nations Headquarters in Iraq on August 19 2003. This attack killed twenty-two people, including the United Nations secretary general's special Iraqi envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Zarqawi 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.

In 2004 Zarqawi allegedly personally beheaded the British hostage Ken Bigley.

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.

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, and numerous explosives. Also seized were three trucks equipped with specially modified plows, apparently designed to crash through security barricades. Jordanian state television aired a videotape of four men admitting they were part of the plot. One of the alleged conspirators, Azmi Al-Jayousi, said that he was acting on the orders of Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi. On February 15 2006, Jordan's High Court of Security sentenced nine men, including al-Zarqawi, to death for their involvement in the plot. Al-Zarqawi was identified by the court as the leader of the al-Tawhid Brigades, a 13-member terrorist cell that planned the attack.

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.

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. However, this claim has been disputed.

On April 25 2006 a video appearing to show Zarqawi surfaced . In the tape, the man says holy warriors are fighting on despite a three-year "crusade". 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 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. The aim of the video was to remove the myth surrounding Zarqawi and to question his prowess as a military leader.

Zarqawi's Marriage and Children

Time magazine reported that Zarqawi's 16-year-old wife was among those killed when the safe house was bombed. Al-jazeera reported that among the dead was Zarqawi's 18-month-old son. Based on the ages of the mother and child, Zarqawi was 38 years old when he consummated his marriage with his then-fourteen-year-old second wife.

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 , perhaps with the tacit support of jihadi elements who wished to use him as a propaganda tool or as a distraction. In one report, the conservative newspaper Daily Telegraph described the claim that Zarqawi was the head of the "terrorist network" in Iraq as a "myth". This report cited an unnamed U.S. military intelligence source to the effect that the Zarqawi leadership myth was initially caused by faulty intelligence, but was later accepted because it suited U.S. government political goals.

One Sunni insurgent leader claimed on 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."

On February 18 2006, Shiite cleric Muqtada as-Sadr made similar charges: "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." memri.org SD110006 - this article no longer exists

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."

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.

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. 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. 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. Knight Ridder later reported that the leg amputation was something "officials now acknowledge was incorrect."

When the video of the Berg beheading was released in 2004, credence was given to the claim that Zarqawi was alive and active. The man identified as Zarqawi in the video did not appear to have a prosthetic leg. Videos of Zarqawi aired in 2006 that clearly showed him with both legs intact. When Zarqawi's body was autopsied, "X-rays also showed a fracture of his right lower leg." ^*

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 . The claim that Zarqawi had been killed in northern Iraq "at the beginning of the war," and that subsequent use of his name was a useful myth, was repeated in September 2005 by Sheikh Jawad Al-Khalessi, a Shiite imam.

On May 24 2005, it was reported on an Islamic website that a deputy would take command of Al-Qaeda while Zarqawi recovered from injuries sustained in an attack. Later that week the Iraqi government confirmed that Zarqawi had been wounded by 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 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. saying that it was a pretext so they don't leave Iraq."

On November 20 2005, some news sources reported that Zarqawi may have been killed in a coalition assault on a house in Mosul; five of those in the house were killed in the assault while the other three died through using 'suicide belts' of explosives. United States and British soldiers searched the remains, with U.S. forces using DNA samples to identify the dead. However, none of those remains belonged to him.

Reportedly captured and released

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

Zarqawi's death

Zarqawi was killed on June 7 2006 while attending a meeting in an isolated safehouse approximately 8 km (5 mi) north of Baqubah. At 14:15 GMT two United States Air Force F-16C jets identified the house and the lead jet dropped two 500-pound (230kg) guided bombs, a laser-guided GBU-12 and GPS-guided GBU-38 on the building located at . Six others - three male and three female individuals - were also reported killed (see below).

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. United States intelligence officials then received tips from Iraqi senior leaders from Zarqawi's network that he and some of his associates were in the Baqubah area. The safehouse itself was watched for over six weeks before Zarqawi was observed entering the building. Jordanian intelligence reportedly helped to identify his location. The area was subsequently secured by Iraqi security forces, who were the first ground forces to arrive.

On June 8 2006, coalition forces confirmed that Zarqawi's body was identified by facial recognition, fingerprinting, known scars and tattoos. They also announced the death of one of his key lieutenants, spiritual adviser Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman.

Initially, the U.S. military reported that Zarqawi was killed directly in the attack. However, according to a statement made the following day by Major General William Caldwell of the U.S. Army, Zarqawi survived for a short time after the bombing, and after being placed on a stretcher, attempted to move and was restrained, after which he died from his injuries. An Iraqi man, who claims to have arrived on the scene a few moments after the attack, said he saw U.S. troops beating up the badly-wounded but still alive Zarqawi. In contradiction, Caldwell asserted that when U.S. troops found Zarqawi barely alive they tried to provide him with medical help, rejecting the allegations that he was beaten based on an autopsy performed. The account of the Iraqi witness has not been verified. All others in the house died immediately in the blasts. On June 12 2006 It was reported that an autopsy performed by the U.S. military revealed that the cause of death to Zarqawi was a blast injury to the lungs, but he took nearly an hour to die.

The U.S. government distributed an image of Zarqawi's corpse as part of the press pack associated with the press conference. The release of the image has been criticised for being in questionable taste, and for inadvertently creating an iconic image of Zarqawi that would be used to rally his supporters. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/08/AR2006060801890.html

Reactions to death

Prime Minister of Iraq Nuri al-Maliki commented on the death of Zarqawi by saying: "Today, Zarqawi has been terminated. Every time a Zarqawi appears we will kill him." "We will continue confronting whoever follows his path. It is an open war between us."

United States President George W. Bush stated that through his every action al-Zarqawi sought to defeat America and our coalition partners and turn Iraq into a safe haven from which al Qaeda could wage its war on free nations by working to divide Iraqis and incite civil war. Bush also stated, "Now Zarqawi has met his end and this violent man will never murder again."

Zarqawi's brother-in-law has since claimed that he was a martyr even though the family renounced Zarqawi and his actions in the aftermath of the Amman triple suicide bombing that killed at least 60 people. The opinion of Iraqis on his death is mixed; some believe that it will promote peace between the warring factions, while others are convinced that his death will provoke his followers to a massive retaliation and cause more bombings and deaths in Iraq. Abu Abdulrahman al-Iraqi, the deputy of al-Zarqawi (which may be the individual called "Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman" mentioned above, meaning he was not present as the bombing happened), released a statement to Islamist websites indicating that al-Qaeda in Iraq also confirmed Zarqawi's death: "We herald the martyrdom of our mujahed Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq … and we stress that this is an honor to our nation." In the statement, al-Iraqi vowed to continue the jihad in Iraq.

On June 16 2006, Abu Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi, the head of the Mujahideen Shura Council, which groups five Iraqi insurgent organizations including al-Qaida in Iraq, released an audio tape statement in which he described the death of al-Zarqawi as a "great loss." He continued by stating that al-Zarqawi "will remain a symbol for all the mujahideen, who will take strength from his steadfastness." Al-Baghdadi is believed to be a former officer in Saddam's army, or its elite Republican Guard, who has worked closely with al-Zarqawi since the overthrow of Saddam's regime in April 2003.

Counterterrorism officials have said that al-Zarqawi had become a key part of al-Qaeda's marketing campaign and that al-Zarqawi served as a "worldwide jihadist rallying point and a fundraising icon." Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, called al-Zarqawi "The terrorist celeb, if you will, ... It is like selling for any organization. They are selling the success of Zarqawi in eluding capture in Iraq."

On June 23 2006, Al-Jazeera aired a video in which Ayman al-Zawahri, considered al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, states that Zarqawi was "a soldier, a hero, an imam and the prince of martyrs, his death has defined the struggle between the crusaders and Islam in Iraq."

On June 30 2006, Osama bin Laden released an audio recording in which he stated, "Our Islamic nation was surprised to find its knight, the lion of jihad, the man of determination and will, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a shameful American raid. We pray to God to bless him and accept him among the martyrs as he had hoped for." Bin Laden also defended al-Zarqawi, saying he had "clear instructions" to focus on U.S.-led forces in Iraq but also "for those who ... stood to fight on the side of the crusaders against the Muslims, then he should kill them whoever they are, regardless of their sect or tribe." Shortly after, he released another audio tape in which he stated, "Our brothers, the mujahedeen in the al Qaeda organization, have chosen the dear brother Abu Hamza al-Muhajer as their leader to succeed the Amir Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. I advise him to focus his fighting on the Americans and everyone who supports them and allies himself with them in their war on the people of Islam and Iraq."

Alleged betrayal by al-Qaeda

A day before Zarqawi was killed, a U.S. strategic analysis site suggested that Zarqawi could have lost the trust of al-Qaeda due to his emphatic anti-Shia stance and the massacres of civilians allegedly committed in his name. Reports in The New York Times on June 9 treated the betrayal by at least one fellow al-Qaeda member as fact, stating that an individual close to Zarqawi disclosed the identity and location of Sheik Abd al-Rahman to Jordanian and American intelligence. Non-stop surveillance of al-Rahman quickly led to Zarqawi.

The Associated Press quotes an unnamed Jordanian official as saying that the effort to find Zarqawi was successful partly due to information that Jordan obtained one month beforehand from a captured Zarqawi al-Qaeda operative named Ziad Khalaf Raja al-Karbouly.

Reward

In apparent contradiction to statements made earlier in the day by U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, an Iraqi spokesman said the $25 million reward "will be honored" (although this need not mean that any money will actually be paid, as the terms of the reward would indeed be "honored" by having no payee if no one qualifies). Khalilzad, in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, had stated the bounty would not be paid because the decisive information leading to Zarqawi's whereabouts had been supplied by an al-Qaeda-in-Mesopotamia operative whose own complicity in violent acts would disqualify him from receiving payment.

Rep. Mark Kirk, a Republican of Illinois who wrote the legislation specifying the Zarqawi reward, has been quoted as saying that the Bush Administration does plan to pay "some rewards" for Zarqawi. "I don't have the specifics," he said, "The administration is now working out who will get it and how much. As their appropriator who funds them, I asked them to let me know if they need more money to run the rewards program now that they are paying this out."

Succession

In early April 2006, unconfirmed rumours suggested that Zarqawi had been demoted from a strategic or coordinating function to overseer of paramilitary/terrorist activities of his group and that Abdullah bin Rashed al-Baghdadi of the Mujahideen Shura Council succeeded Zarqawi in the former function.

On June 15 2006, the United States military officially identified Abu Ayyub al-Masri as the successor to Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Post-Zarqawi Iraq Environment

The removal of al-Zarqawi has resulted in little or no identifiable change with regards to violence and attacks against US and allied troops. During June 2006, insurgency incidents averaged 90 a day, apparently some of the highest on record . 49 coalition soldiers were killed in hostile attacks during the 28-day period following Zarqawi's death, this was down 17% (59) from the same period in the previous year but up 20% (41) from 2004 ''(data is from a search conducted on icasualties.org).

References

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