The Al Zarqawi Phenomenon

Al Jazeera Magazine | September 19 2005

The Bush administration had numerous chances to arrest the Jordanian militant Ahmad al-Khalayleh, known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, if he does really exist, since February 2003 speech of the former Secretary of State Colin Powell at United Nations Security Council, a great portion of which was given to the “terrorist camp in Khurmal”, in the pre-invasion Kurdish enclave.

It was at that camp that Zarqawi supposedly fled Afghanistan, and Kurds were receiving intensive training to produce the poison ricin and cyanide.

At that time, the Khurmal camp and the area surrounding it were out of Saddam Hussein's control, but Powell fabricated evidence, largely discredited by the intelligence community, to show that Zarqawi does have ties to the Iraqi regime.

Al Zarqawi's "headquarters" were bombed to the ground by U.S. forces that year, and some news sources claimed that he had been killed, but his name keeps recurring whenever the U.S. needs.

Contradicting Powell's claims for Zarqawi's importance was another statement made by the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who said that Al Zarqawi's ties to Al Qaeda may have been far more ambiguous.

"Someone could legitimately say he's not Al Qaeda," said Rumsfeld.

Many of the Americans who worked in counterterrorism questioned Powell's claims at that time. If the Khurmal camp where Al Zarqawi and his followers are supposed to be hiding was known to the admin, which was also aware, according to Powell’s claims that they’re working on some banned weapons why wasn’t that place bombed by the U.S. forces? Why did the admin not send special operations forces to cleanse them?

Almost every attack that takes place in Iraq is attributed to Al Zarqawi, and his so-called Al Qaeda military wing in Iraq. No car or roadside bomb attacks occur unless they're attributed to him by the U.S.

Indeed, Bush’s admin has made good use of Al Zarqawi’s ghost, and made an epic hero out of him, and many western news outlets helped sell this image.

With the latest exposure of Bush’s Iraq war lies, one had begun to wonder if Al Zarqawi does really exist.

Numerous interviews conducted in Amman resulted in more questions and no answers about Al Zarqawi.

"Zarqawi, I don't even know if he exists," said a taxi driver. "He's like Bin Laden, we don't even know if he exists; but if he does, I support that he fights the U.S. occupation of Iraq."

• Propaganda

Asking a man in a small tea stall in downtown Amman about what he thought of Zarqawi, he said that he believed he does really exist, but expressed doubt about him being responsible for the brutal attacks in Iraq, saying that those claims were "nonsense."

"The Americans are using him for their propaganda," he insisted. "Think about it – with all of their power and intelligence capabilities – they cannot find one man?"

"Besides, it is any person's right to defend himself if his country is invaded. The American occupation of Iraq has destabilized the entire region," the man said.

The Bush administration has repeatedly claimed that militant leader Abu Musab Al Zarqawi is the direct link between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Although several political analysts stated that, contrary to the Bush administration’s assertions, Al-Zarqawi’s combat tactics and operational goals were never consistent with Hussein’s, nor are they in accord with those of most Iraqis currently fighting against the ongoing U.S.-led occupation.

"Saddam did not have any love for non-Iraqi Arabs... We have found no evidence he cooperated with Al Zarqawi himself," a high ranking U.S. official was quoted as saying.

The U.S. military uses Al Zarqawi as a shadow it needs follow in whatever city or town it intends to bomb or launch a campaign against.

• Only in the minds of the Americans

"I've met him here in Jordan," said Abdullah Hamiz, a 29 year-old merchant in Amman, "Two years ago." However, Hajam Yousef, shining shoes under a date palm in central Amman, insists, "He doesn't exist except in the minds of American policy-makers."

What’s been published about Al Zarqawi so far is a biography of a normal 38 years old man from Al Zarqa city in Jordan.

While some Jordanians describe Al Zarqawi as someone who grew up as a rebellious child, some reports, supposedly based on his friends statements suggest that in his teens Al Zarqawi started drinking heavily, getting tattoos, and picking fights he could not win.

According to Jordanian intelligence reports provided by the Associated Press in Amman, Zarqawi was jailed in the 1980's for sexual assault, though no additional details were made available at that time.

At the age of 20, according to what’s been published about his life, Al Zarqawi began looking for direction, and ended up making his way to Afghanistan to join the war against the Soviets in that country. But some media outlets, among which is The New York Times said that he did not actually fight in Afghanistan.

Last September, the BBC, among other news outlets, reported that "U.S. officials suspect that Zarqawi…is holed up with followers in the rebellious Iraqi city of Fallujah," citing no specific sources to prove that.

And during the U.S. offensive on Fallujah in November last year, the Newsweek reported that "some U.S. officials say that Zarqawi may actually be directing or instigating events in the town by telephone from elsewhere in Iraq." Though they too cited no specific sources.

"His crucial role in the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, however, cannot be underestimated, the Newsweek said at that time." Meanwhile, the BBC was reporting that his "network is considered the main source of kidnappings, bomb attacks and assassination attempts in Iraq" – another statement based on no solid evidence.

Almost every media report about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi amounts to countless statements based on anonymous sources.

Never has a figure been more famous or regularly written about like Al Zarqawi.

Despite what’s been written about Al Zarqawi, who he is, where he is from, and where he went until he entered Iraq, evidence that might stand up in a court of law is absent.

The question now is who benefits from the ongoing epics of the shadowy figure of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi?

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