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| Zarqawi: from street thug to terror mastermind May 8, 2006 BAGHDAD, Iraq - Top Al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a US and Jordanian-led airstrike, orchestrated a string of bloody attacks and videoed beheadings in Iraq, but managed to evade capture for years. The grisly footage of a man reputed to be Zarqawi wielding a sword to execute bound and blindfolded hostages kneeling before him triggered global revulsion, earning him a 25-million-dollar bounty on his head as one of world's most wanted men. But the Jordanian-born Islamist's loyalty to the "jihad", or holy war, and his terror tactics against the occupying forces, won him praise from Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who appointed him the network's top man in Iraq in 2004, four years after the two men first met in Afghanistan. The 39-year-old, who was killed in a strike on his safe house in Baquba, some 60 kilometres (35 miles) north of Baghdad, had topped a US most-wanted list in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's downfall in April 2003. But he long remained at large despite the huge reward. US military leaders repeatedly described him and Al-Qaeda, blamed for the September 11, 2001 strikes on the US, as the biggest obstacle to peace in Iraq. He last appeared in an Internet video in April, a bearded, beefy figure gripping a light-machine gun, and vowing to defeat the United States and "chase" America out of Iraq "defeated and humiliated". It was the first time that Zarqawi had released such a videotaped message, preferring to remain a terrifying, enigmatic figure, hiding behind a mask as he wielded his sword. Zarqawi's story of his rise from his humble origins in Jordan to his transformation into a global face of terror remains shrouded in mystery. Born Fadel Nazzal al-Khalayleh to a poor family from the powerful Bani Hassan tribe, Zarqawi, who has three brothers and seven sisters, was a poor student who never graduated from high school. People in his hometown of Zarqa, from where he gets his name, remember a hot-headed youth, always armed with a pen-knife and a tattoo of an anchor on his arm. Although his mother, Oum Sayel, once described him as "tender" she admitted he had a bad temper when riled. After her death in 2004 "life no longer had any sense" for Zarqawi, his fellow cell-mate Abdallah Abu Rumman told AFP. After several run-ins with the law, Zarqawi became fascinated by the teachings of radical Salafist Islamist Mohamad al-Makdessi, whom he met in Pakistan, where he worked as a journalist from 1988-1992 for mujahedeen newspapers. Back in Jordan, Zarqawi was tried and sentenced in 1994 to 15 years in prison for membership in an illegal group and arms possession. During the first eight months of his imprisonment, he memorised and studied the Koran. And he gained a reputation as a dangerous man to cross. "The other prisoners feared him. He imposed discipline on his group with just a simple look," the prison doctor Bassel Ichak Abu Sabha told AFP. As he became increasingly radicalised, he tried to burn the tatoo off his arm, the doctor recalled. He was also capable of acts of great tenderness though, said Abu Sabha, remembering how Zarqawi would carry and bathe a fellow prisoner who has lost both his legs during a bombing of a cinema. Ironically it was Jordan's King Abdullah II who freed Zarqawi in 1999 as part of a general amnesty. The king was later to call the terror leader a "street thug." Those who knew him say Zarqawi became increasingly radical after being shocked by the social openess he saw in Jordan with the arrival of tens of thousands of Palestinians who fled Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion in 1990. He was also reportedly marked by a dream one of his sisters had, in which a sword came down from the heaven embossed with the word "jihad" and a verse from the Koran saying "God will never abandon you and will never forget you." "This vision convinced him that he had a calling for an important role, " a former acquaintance said. But in recent months, Zarqawi's star appears to have fallen. In April he was apparently replaced as political head of the rebels, and confined to a strictly military role. The apparent demotion raised speculation that Zarqawi's readiness to kill civilians and his foreign nationality had cost him supporters among Iraqi Islamists, who had rallied to the insurgency's fight against US forces in the country. And last month, US forces said they were zooming in on him, and that his days were numbered. A veteran of the Afghan war against Soviet occupation, a US-backed conflict in the 1980s that drew many Muslim idealists, his encounter with bin Laden took place in 2000 during visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan. In late 2001, he was wounded in combat after taking up arms against US-led forces fighting to unseat the Taliban. Zarqawi had already been sentenced to death by Jordan for planning the October 2002 murder of USAID diplomat Laurence Foley, who was gunned down at point-blank range outside his home in Amman. He also stood accused of an plotting an attack on Jordan's intelligence agency using trucks loaded with 20 tons of chemicals that officials say could have killed 80,000 people and injured 160,000 others. Copyright 2005 AFP. |