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The Zarqawi Phenomenon
By Dahr Jamail
07/05/05 - -
A remarkable proportion of the violence taking place in Iraq is
regularly credited to the Jordanian Ahmad al-Khalayleh, better
known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and his organization Al Qaeda in
Iraq. Sometimes it seems no car bomb goes off, no ambush occurs
that isn't claimed in his name or attributed to him by the Bush
administration. Bush and his top officials have, in fact, made
good use of him, lifting his reputed feats of terrorism to epic,
even mythic, proportions (much aided by various mainstream media
outlets). Given that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has now
been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be based upon
administration lies and manipulations, I had begun to wonder if
the vaunted Zarqawi even existed.
In Amman, where I was recently based, random interviews with
Jordanians only generated more questions and no answers about
Zarqawi. As it happens, though, the Jordanian capital is just a
short cab ride from Zarqa, the city Zarqawi is said to be from. So
I decided to slake my curiosity about him by traveling there and
nosing around his old neighborhood.
"Zarqawi, I don't even know if he exists," said a
scruffy taxi driver in Amman and his was a typical comment.
"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."
Chatting with a man sipping tea in a small tea stall in
downtown Amman, I asked what he thought of Zarqawi. He was
convinced that Zarqawi was perfectly real, but the idea that he
was responsible for such a wide range of attacks in Iraq had to be
"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?"
Like so many others in neighboring Jordan, he, too, offered
verbal support for the armed resistance in Iraq, adding,
"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 Bush administration has regularly claimed that Zarqawi was
in -- and then had just barely escaped from -- whatever city or
area they were next intent on attacking or cordoning off or
launching a campaign against. Last year, he and his organization
were reputed to be headquartered in Fallujah, prior to the
American assault that flattened the city. At one point, American
officials even alleged that he was commanding the defense of
Fallujah from elsewhere by telephone. Yet he also allegedly
slipped out of Fallujah either just before or just after the
beginning of the assault, depending on which media outlet or
military press release you read.
He has since turned up, according to American intelligence
reports and the U.S. press, in Ramadi, Baghdad, Samarra, and Mosul
among other places, along with side trips to Jordan, Iran,
Pakistan and/or Syria. His closest "lieutenants" have
been captured by the busload, according to American military
reports, and yet he always seems to have a bottomless supply of
them. In May, a news report on the BBC even called Zarqawi
"the leader of the insurgency in Iraq," though more
sober analysts of the chaotic Iraqi situation say his group,
Jama'at al-Tawhid wal Jihad, while probably modest in size and
reach is linked to a global network of jihadists. However, finding
any figures as to the exact size of the group remains an elusive
task.
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell offered photos before
the U.N. in February, 2003 of Zarqawi's "headquarters"
in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, also claiming that Zarqawi
had links to Al-Qaeda. The collection of small huts was bombed to
the ground by U.S. forces in March of that year, prompting one
news source to claim that Zarqawi had been killed. Yet seemingly
contradicting Powell's claims for Zarqawi's importance was a
statement made in October, 2004 by Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, who conceded that Zarqawi's ties to Al Qaeda may have
been far more ambiguous, that he may have been more of a rival
than a lieutenant to Osama bin Laden. "Someone could
legitimately say he's not Al Qaeda," added Rumsfeld.
The Eternal Netherworld of Zarqawi
For anyone trying to assess the Zarqawi phenomenon from
neighboring Jordan, complicating matters further are the
contradictory statements Jordanians regularly offer up about
almost any aspect of Zarqawi's life, history, present activities,
or even his very existence.
"I've met him here in Jordan," claimed Abdulla 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."
In fact, what little is actually known about Zarqawi sounds
like the biography of a troubled but normal man from the
industrial section of Zarqa. Thirty-eight years old now, according
to the BBC, Zarqawi reportedly grew up a rebellious child who ran
with the wrong crowd. He liked to play soccer in the streets as a
young boy and dropped out of school when he was 17. According to
some reports, his friends claimed that in his teens he started
drinking heavily, getting tattoos, and picking fights he could not
win. According to Jordanian intelligence reports provided to the
Associated Press in Amman, Zarqawi was jailed in the 1980's for
sexual assault, though no additional details are available. By the
time he was 20 he evidently began looking for direction, and ended
up making his way to Afghanistan in the last years of the jihadist
war against the Soviets in that country. While some media outlets
like the New York Times claim that he did not actually
fight in Afghanistan, there are people in Jordan who believe he
did.
He is reported to have returned to Jordan in 1992 where he was
arrested after Jordanian authorities found weapons in his home.
Upon his release in 1999, he left once again for Pakistan. When
his Pakistani visa expired, expecting to be arrested as a suspect
in a terror plot if he returned to Jordan, he entered Afghanistan
instead.
After supposedly running a weapons camp there, he was next
sighted by Jordanian authorities, crossing back into Jordan from
Syria in September of 2002. Sometime between then and May 11,
2004, when he was reported to have beheaded the kidnapped
American, Nick Berg, in Baghdad, Zarqawi entered Iraq. Many news
outlets have reported that his goal in Iraq is to generate a
sectarian civil war between the Sunni and Shia.
In September, 2004, the BBC, among others, reported, "U.S.
officials suspect that Zarqawi…is holed up with followers in the
rebellious Iraqi city of Fallujah," though their sources, as
is true of more or less all sources in every report on Zarqawi,
were nebulous. During the second siege of Fallujah, last November,
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 and provided no evidence for this, Newsweek
then summed Zarqawi's importance up in this way: "His crucial
role in the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, however,
cannot be underestimated." Meanwhile, the BBC was reporting
that his "network is considered the main source of
kidnappings, bomb attacks and assassination attempts in Iraq"
-- another statement made without much, if any, solid evidence.
In the end, the vast mass of reportage on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
amounts to countless statements based on anonymous sources hardly
less shadowy -- to ordinary readers -- than him. He exists, then,
in a kind of eternal netherworld of reportage, rumor, and
attribution. It could almost be said that never has a figure been
more regularly written about based on less hard information. While
we have a rough outline of 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 consistently absent. The question that begs to be
answered in this glaring void of hard information is: Who benefits
from the ongoing tales of the mysterious Zarqawi?
The Search for Zarqawi's Past
My own little journey only seemed to repeat this larger
phenomenon on a more modest scale. It was the sort of story where,
from beginning to end, no one I met ever seemed willing to offer
his or her real name (or certainly let a real name be used in an
article). From second one, Zarqawi and an urge for anonymity were
tightly -- and perhaps appropriately -- bound together. Abdulla
(not his real name, of course), the man who agreed to drive my
translator Aisha and me to Al-Zarqa for this excursion was a
Jordanian, by the look of things about 30 years old, who
chain-smoked nervously throughout the trip. We decided to go with
him after running into him while I was conducting my own informal
Zarqawi reality poll in Amman.
"I know him personally because we fought together in
Afghanistan in the early ‘90's," insisted Abdulla ,
"If you like, I can show you where he is from."
When he picked us up on the late afternoon of the next day in
his beat-up, rusting taxi, he agreed to a modest fee that was to
be paid at the end of our excursion. As we puttered up a hillside
on our venture to Zarqawi's hometown of Al-Zarqa, he promptly
pulled out a small stack of photos. I flipped through them as we
drove towards Zarqawi's neighborhood and noted Abdulla standing in
front of the huge Faisal Mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan, a giant
beard (no longer present) dominating his flowing dishdasha.
Another picture had him in Peshawar, Pakistan, a city near the
Afghan border known as a recruiting and staging area for the
Taliban. Others seemed to have him in the Philippines standing
amid dense forest with a gun slung over his shoulder. In none of
them -- why should I have been surprised -- did he have a
companion with the now so globally recognizable Zarqawi sneer.
A little while into our journey, out of nowhere Abdulla
suddenly said, "Anyone collaborating with the Americans in
Iraq should be killed!"
I took this as a sign that he felt like talking, and asked him
what he knew of Zarqawi. According to him, he met the mythic
terrorist in Peshawar before being sent with him to a training
camp on the border of Afghanistan in 1990. "There are several
well known training camps in the mountains between Afghanistan and
Pakistan," he explained, "And we were in one of those,
along with freedom fighters from Syria, Jordan, Palestine, and
Lebanon."
Only fighters for "jihad" were allowed into the
camps, he continued proudly. Only fighters who were identified by
other well known mujahideen were granted permission to enter, in
an effort to safeguard those camps against spies. After three
months of training with machine guns and rocket launchers, Abdulla
claims that he and Zarqawi headed for Afghanistan to fight the
Russians who remained there.
When I looked at him quizzically -- since the Russians withdrew
from Afghanistan in February of 1989 -- he replied, "Many of
them stayed after their government announced they had withdrawn --
so we were pushing the rest of them out."
This was already a questionable tale, but he went right on.
They were given the choice, he claimed, of where to go in
Afghanistan, and Abdulla proudly stated that most of the
mujahideen went to the "hot" areas where they expected
to find fighting. Our discussion was then interrupted because we
had completed the hop to Zarqa and arrived in the neighborhood, so
rumor has it, where Zarqawi's brother-in-law lives. We were
dropped off near a small mosque
where Zarqawi supposedly used to pray.
Abdulla says it isn't safe for him to linger here -- though he
doesn't bother to explain why -- and we agree instead that he will
call us on my cell phone in an hour to see if we need more time or
not.
So Aisha and I begin to walk around the quiet, middle-class
neighborhood asking people if they know where the brother-in-law
lives. Small
children play in the streets. Behind them young men and
parents sit eyeing us suspiciously. The wind whips plastic bags
along the roads between the usual stone houses of Jordan. Finally,
we find an old man with a white, flowing beard and tired eyes
sitting in a worn chair at the front of a small grocery stall. He
admits to being the Imam of the mosque, but when asked if he
remembers Zarqawi he dodges the question artfully.
"It is probably true that he used to pray in my
mosque," he responds tiredly, "but I can't say for sure,
as my back is to the people whom I lead in prayers."
After this he looks away, down the road. I assume he's wishing
we were gone -- undoubtedly like so many Zarqawi seekers before
us. So we thank him and walk on.
Next, we find a woman -- no names given -- who assures us that
Zarqawi is from the Beni Hassan tribe, the largest tribe in
Jordan, before pointing to a
two-story white house with a black satellite dish on top.
"That is Ahmed Zarqawi's home," she says softly,
referring to one of his brothers before warning, "But don't
go there because they will throw rocks on your head. They are sick
of the media."
After being sidetracked by being shown his brothers' home, we
keep doggedly asking for his brother-in-law, but everyone insists
that they simply don't know where he lives, which seems odd. Just
up the hill from his brother's home, we stumble upon a middle-aged
man who is willing to be interviewed. He's a rare find in this
village that has certainly been inundated with media, not to speak
of far more threatening visits from the intelligence and police
personnel of various countries.
Like our taxi driver, this man agrees to be interviewed on
condition of anonymity. These are, it seems, a reasonably
media-savvy group of villagers. He tells us that Zarqawi's brother
doesn't know much about the mythic legend of the Jordanian jihadi
outlaw, due to the fact that he keeps his distance from all the
hoopla. He then laughs and adds, "But all the media went to
his brother's house anyway to film it, because they thought it was
Zarqawi's home!"
He then points across a shallow valley where lines of homes sit
bathed in the setting sun. "He [Zarqawi] is from
that village, lives near a cemetery, and his father is mayor
of that district, which is called al-Ma'assoum quarter."
He claims to have known Abu Musab since he was seven years old,
as they went to Prince Talal Primary School together. "He was
a trouble maker ever since he was a kid," he explains,
"What the media is saying about him is not true, though. Abu
Musab is a normal guy. What the Americans are saying is not true.
Most of us who know him here and in his neighborhood don't believe
any of this media."
He tells us that Zarqawi left the neighborhood in the early
1990's to go to Afghanistan, but that he doesn't believe he is in
Iraq. Along with others in the neighborhood, he is convinced that
Zarqawi was killed in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan during
the U.S. bombings that resulted from the attacks of September
11th.
"His wife and their three children still live over
there," he adds, "But don't go talk to them. They won't
allow it." He believes Zarqawi was killed, "100%,"
and then says emphatically, "If he is still alive, why not
show a recent photo of him? All of these they show in the media
are quite old."
Like so many Jordanians, he supports the Iraqi resistance,
"All Muslims should fight this occupation because everyday
the Americans are slaughtering innocent Iraqis." Zarqawi, he
tells us, wasn't a fighter until he went to Afghanistan.
"Then his wife covered herself in black and has worn it ever
since." According to this man, Zarqawi has two brothers named
Ahmed and Sail. He says with a smile, "Most of the media
coming here are westerners because I think most of the Arab media
know this is all a myth."
He holds up his hands when one of his sons brings us coffee and
asks, "When they show hostages in Iraq, why doesn't he put
himself in the film? There is simply no proof he is alive offered
by the Americans or the media."
We engage in some small talk while drinking our strong Arabic
coffee as we sit under grape vines lacing the terrace over our
heads. As the sun begins to set, we thank him for the talk and the
coffee, and head off as our taxi driver phones.
I am walking quickly through the streets to meet him when Aisha,
whom I've worked with often in Baghdad, reassures me: "You
can slow down, Dahr, we are not in danger here. This isn't like
Baghdad where we'll be killed after dark."
Shortly thereafter we meet our driver. "They didn't tell
you where his brother-in-law is because his home has been raided
so many times," he states as a matter of fact. "By both
Jordanian and US intelligence."
Our driver insists that Zarqawi is alive and well in Iraq.
"I'm certain of it, because if he was dead they would show
his picture and make the announcement. He has always been so
strong. When we were in Afghanistan, any time we got a new machine
to learn or French missiles, he was the first to learn them."
He drives us by another mosque Zarqawi is also supposed to have
attended. We are in the al-Ma'assoum quarter now and our driver
tells us that a sister of Abu Musab is the head of the Islamic
Center of the district. He then adds, somewhat randomly, that he
himself has been in different prisons for a total of seven years
-- one of those statements you can't decide whether you wished you
had never heard or are simply relieved you didn't hear hours
earlier just as you were beginning.
"In Afghanistan when we beheaded people it was to show the
enemy what their fate was to be. It was to frighten them."
I think to myself grimly: Well, it works.
He adds, "The jihad in Iraq is not just Zarqawi. It is up
to Allah if we prevail, not dependent on the hand of Zarqawi. If
he is killed, the jihad will continue there."
I ask him about civilian casualties. Does he think Zarqawi
cares about the killing of innocent people?
"I have had so many discussions with Iraqis to tell them
that Zarqawi doesn't instruct his followers in the killing of
innocent people. If he did this, I would be the first to turn
against him. He only targets the Americans and
collaborators."
He's still chain smoking as we drive through the darkness back
to Amman. I pay him as we thank him for taking us to Zarqa, and
then his beat up taxi rolls off down the busy street.
The Eerie Blankness of Zarqawi
After discussions with our driver and other Jordanians, the
only thing I feel I can say for sure is that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
is a real person. Whether or not he is alive and fighting in Iraq
or not, or what acts he is actually responsible for there, is open
to debate. On one point, I'm quite certain, however: Reported
American claims that Zarqawi has affiliations with the secular
government of Syria make no sense. Just as Saddam Hussein opposed
the religious fundamentalism of Osama Bin-Laden, the Syrian
government would not be likely to team up with a fundamentalist
like Zarqawi.
As Bush administration officials have falsely claimed Saddam
Hussein had links to Bin-Laden and to Zarqawi, they have also
conveniently linked Zarqawi to a Syrian government they would
certainly like to take out. Similarly, Bush officials continue to
link Zarqawi to the Iraqi resistance -- undoubtedly another bogus
claim in that the resistance in Iraq is primarily composed of
Iraqi nationalists and Baathist elements who are fighting to expel
the occupiers from their country, not to create a global Islamic
jihad.
Thus, even if Zarqawi is involved in carrying out attacks
inside Iraq and is killed at some future moment, the effect this
would have on the Iraqi resistance would surely be negligible. It
would be but another American "turning point" where
nothing much turned.
Right now, when you try to track down Zarqawi, a man with a $25
million American bounty on his head, or simply try to track him
back to the beginnings of his life's journey, whether you look for
him in the tunnels of Tora Bora, the ruined city of Fallujah, the
Syrian borderlands, or Ramadi, you're likely to run up against a
kind of eerie blankness. Whatever the real Zarqawi may or may not
be capable of doing today in Iraq or elsewhere, he is dwarfed by
the Zarqawi of legend. He may be the Bush administration's
Terrorist of Terrorists (now that Osama Bin-Laden has been dropped
into the void), the Iraqi insurgency's unwelcome guest, the
fantasy figure in some Jihadi dreamscape, or all of the above.
Whatever the case, Zarqawi the man has disappeared into an epic
tale that may or may not be of his own partial creation. Even
dead, he is unlikely to die; even alive, he is unlikely to be able
to live up to anybody's Zarqawi myth.
Whoever he actually may be, the "he" of Jihadist
websites and American pronouncements is now linked inextricably
with the devolving occupation of Iraq and a Bush administration
that, even as it has built him up as a satanic bogeyman, is itself
beginning to lose its own mythic qualities, to grow smaller.
I'm sure we'll continue to hear of "him" in Iraq, in
Jordan, or elsewhere as his myth, perhaps now beyond anyone's
control, continues to transform itself as an inextricable part of
the brutal, bloody occupation of Iraq where the Bush
Administration finds itself fighting not primarily Zarqawi (or his
imitators) but the Iraqis they allegedly came to liberate.
Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist from Anchorage, Alaska. He has spent 8 months reporting from occupied Iraq, and recently has been reporting from Jordan and Turkey. He regularly reports for Inter Press Service, as well as contributing to The Nation, The Sunday Herald and Asia Times among others. He maintains a website at:
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com
Copyright 2005 Dahr Jamail
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