The most wanted man in Iraq

The media almost daily mentions his name as the leader of the most feared militant group in Iraq. Whatever violent incidents, beheadings of hostages and kidnappings are happening in Iraq, one man is being accused of masterminding all these grisly occurrences, and he is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

Who is this elusive man? These are the questions that agitate the minds of many Americans and others in many countries. Another interesting question is where is his hiding place in Iraq? Is he blamed for every atrocity in Iraq unnecessarily?

Very few facts are known about Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Hardly anyone knows what he really looks like. His height and weight are unknown to the CIA. One old passport-like picture is pasted up in Iraq: round face, furtive eyes, stubbled chin and beanie-like black cap on his head.

The US authorities have put $25 million on his head. Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi demanded his hand-over to Iraqi authorities from Falluja residents. If they would fail to do this, he would authorise US forces to bomb and destroy his hideout in Falluja, the Sunni stronghold, west of Baghdad. The Falluja residents found it impossible to do so because they did not know his whereabouts.

Whatever reports have been published, many believe that either his involvement is exaggerated or disproportionately magnified. There are many insurgents who are reportedly not linked with him in Iraq but all are grouped under him.

Brief profile
Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi is a born Jordanian. He was born as Ahmad Fadil Al-Khalayilah in village, called Al-Zarqa. He took a disguised name as Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

He is the "East Banker" in Jordanian parlance, because he came from the east bank of the Jordan river. He belonged to one of the powerful tribes that are "bedrock" of the Jordanian establishment -- he was of the legendary Beni Hassan tribe that watched over Jordan's border with Iraq and had delivered many national leaders, military officials, and intelligence agents.

His father was a community counselor from whom people sought advice. His father's early death led Al-Zarqawi to shoulder the responsibility for his mother and sisters. His mother died last year -- the only person he respected. He was known to be a restless child and left school early.

The invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in 1979 changed his life. He soon joined the Mujeheddin to fight against the Russians troops with the help of the CIA and Pakistan's intelligence agents. There are reports that Zarqawi fought in the sector of Khost and Herat, close to Iranian border. His mentor for a while was Palestinian fundamentalist Al-Maqdisi, but he later fell out with him.

Maqdisi belonged to the "Salafi Movement" -- the credo of the fundamentalist Islamic warmongers that provides religious sanction for war in the name of Islam. This movement might have languished ineffectually on the fringes of world affairs had not the CIA decided in the 1980s to pour billions of dollars in arms and support to a pan-Arabist army of volunteers. He justified his armed struggle against Russian troops on the grounds that all Muslims had a duty to repel the "infidel" Soviet invasion of Muslim Afghanistan.

Ideology
Like Osama Bin Laden, Al-Zarqawi's ideology is known to be based on Islamic orthodoxy. Al-Zarqawi believes that any departure from the orthodoxy is considered deviant behaviour and must be stamped out. His co-prisoners think that his ideology is narrow and limited. He had no interest in dialogue and compromise. Some say he is just like President Bush:

"You are with me or against me." He sees everything in black and white.

Do the threats against Islam come from non-Islamic countries? Or is there an internal threat to Islamic purity in Muslim governments, be they tradition-based, like Saudi Arabia and Jordan, or puppet regimes installed by foreign force, as in Iraq and Afghanistan? He was opposed to the Saddam Hussein's Sunni regime because it was too secular for him.

Furthermore, he is not averse to breach Islamic convention that a Muslim should not act violently against another Muslim. He is anti-Shi'ia and blames Iraq's fate on the treachery of Shi'ites, the majority of Iraq's population, for cooperating with the US.

His ideology differs from that of Osama Bin Laden. While Osama is against the US for helping the Saudi regime, Al-Zarqawi is against both foreign and Muslim regimes that do not adhere to his version of Islamic precepts.

While Osama has been a strategic planner for his followers, Al-Zarqawi not only plans but also executes the plan of actions. He is an ideologist, planner, and executioner -- all three in one. Although the agenda of Osama Bin Laden differs from that of Al-Zarqawi, it has been reported recently that Al -Zarqawi has declared allegiance to Osama Bin Laden, saying it agrees with Al-Quaeda on strategy and the need for unity against the "enemies of Islam."

The wanderer
He was opposed to Jordanian monarchy. To him, the social and economic malaise in Jordan is due to departure of precepts of Islam. He condemned the government and branded the Sunni clerics as instruments of the corrupt Jordanian regime. He was arrested and was imprisoned in Jordan. In prison it is reported that he read and memorised the Holy Qu'ran. After release, he left for Afghanistan.

He returned to Jordan in 1992 and wanted to lead a family life selling vegetables and fruits. He wanted to buy a truck to do the business. But he failed to get the necessary paperwork for it. He became frustrated. There are reports that Jordanian intelligence had a unit to monitor his activities and they reportedly blocked whatever Al-Zarqawi wanted to do. They wanted him to leave the country.

Al-Zarqawi came to Pakistan but was arrested because his visa ran out. He was jailed briefly and ordered to leave the country. He again returned to Jordan. When his life became intolerable, he left for Iraq and found himself in the midst of the insurgency. He cannot return to Jordan as he has been indicted in Jordan on charges of plotting a chemical attack that could have killed thousands of people.

Strategy
Once the militants defeated the mighty Soviet Union, they became more confident of victory of their ideology. The militant fighters, imbibed by the zeal of Islamic fundamentalism and Wahabbism, have found a niche for themselves, first in Afghanistan under the US-backed Mujehedin, then under the Talibans, and now in Iraq.

Al-Zarqawi has his own sophisticated public relations machine. The Al-Zarqawi profile is so great now that it does not matter how many of the charges against him are true. What does matter is that he is believed to become an inspirational figurehead for an insurgent army of about 20,000 fighters, called Tawhid Wa'Al-Jihad, that has been able to dig in, carrying out operations and keeping in tact the lines of funding and communication. Many fear Iraq may head for a bloody civil war.

Al-Zarqawi's acts of violence in the past six months have taken him into lounge rooms of the world. Nobody, least of all the Americans, is sure of where he hides in Iraq. There has not been any confirmed sighting of Al-Zarqawi in Falluja.

Conclusion
Many political analysts say that in the 80s the last battle of the Cold War was fought in Afghanistan and it had been a significant factor in the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, otherwise it would have been on the fringe in world affairs. The US was determined that the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 not prevail and Islamic fundamentalists including the so-called "Arab Afghans" fought a proxy war, on behalf of the US and supported by Pakistan, to defeat the Soviet Union's occupation in Afghanistan.

There is another dimension to the story of Al-Zaqawi. It is noted that the World Bank's President James Wolfensohn has linked poverty with terrorism, although many in the West deny it. Al-Zarqawi appears to be a product of poverty, frustration, and militant Islam. The Al-Zarqawi story lends credence to Wolfensohn's views.

Barrister Harun ur Rashid is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.