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| Terror Networks & Islam |
| Some new info on Zarqawi from a book review |
| 2005-07-31 |
| His resume includes a short stint as manager of a video store. Then there was the job in the paper factory that required him to keep track of chemicals, followed by the position (gotten through family connections) in his town's government. Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was fired from these last two jobs for negligence -- one of the many revealing facts that are sprinkled throughout "Zarqawi: The New Face of Al-Qaeda." The first biography of the man who leads Iraq's bloody insurgency, "Zarqawi" is a dense, detailed chronicle of the insurgent's evolution from his teenage years as a street thug. According to this book, Zarqawi has always been rebellious, which is why he put greenish tattoos all over his body, drank heavily and beat up anyone who crossed him. Growing up, Zarqawi wasn't drawn to religion or to studying but to proving himself one of the toughest people in Zarqa, Jordan. Confronting police. Stealing. Drug dealing. Sexual assault. Zarqawi was essentially a common criminal "looking for a way to break free of the dead-end situation in which he felt he was stuck," writes Jean-Charles Brisard, a terrorism expert whose previous books have been about Osama bin Laden. Zarqawi found his "destiny" (a word that Brisard uses early and often) in the religious war that Muslims were fighting in Afghanistan. The year was 1989, and Zarqawi was 22. Even though Zarqawi arrived in Afghanistan when the mujahedeen had just forced out the Soviet military, he still found an environment that encouraged new recruits to take up arms and prolong the armed struggle against all perceived infidels. In Afghanistan and western parts of Pakistan (where Afghan rebels had set up command centers), Zarqawi met people who would inspire him to join the ranks of al Qaeda. He also became a journalist of sorts, writing reports about Afghan fighters for an extremist publication named Al-Bunyan Al-Marsus. Eventually, Zarqawi took up arms himself, joining the army of an Afghan warlord, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and establishing his Islamist credentials with others who were impressed with Zarqawi's ability to organize and get things done. A terrorist was born. One of the patterns that emerges in "Zarqawi" is how often authorities had Zarqawi in their possession but let him go. From his initial foray into Afghanistan to the start of the Iraq war in 2003, Zarqawi was imprisoned at various times in Jordan, Iran and Pakistan. He spent several years in Jordanian jails, only to be released in 1999 under an amnesty decreed by King Abdallah. At the height of U.S.-led bombing in Afghanistan in 2001, Zarqawi's house in Kandahar was hit, and he suffered bad wounds in his stomach and leg, but his clandestine network hurried him to Tehran, where he received medical help until he was healthy again. Brisard's book details (painstakingly) Zarqawi's years of establishing what is now the most efficient terrorist network in Iraq. Brisard is a French investigator who, in 2002, was hired by lawyers representing families of Sept. 11 victims. They asked Brisard to find all the information he could on people and organizations that supported al Qaeda. In "Zarqawi," Brisard includes page after page of timelines and connections involving Zarqawi, bin Laden and lesser-known principals in the terrorist networks that al Qaeda has spawned. Entire chapters of "Zarqawi" read like an inquest produced for White House lawyers, but Brisard certainly succeeds in showing that Zarqawi is the central cog -- even more than bin Laden -- in fomenting continuous violence against U.S. targets (and those who support U.S. aims). Readers looking for a literary portrait of Zarqawi will be disappointed by "Zarqawi," which Brisard wrote with terrorism expert Damien Martinez. The details of Zarqawi's personality and habits -- the things that make him, for lack of a better word, "human" -- take a backseat to the minutiae of Zarqawi's ability to sustain his bloody movement. "Zarqawi" could have used the help of an established author to give it more punch and analysis. One small example: Unlike bin Laden, Zarqawi grew up relatively poor, yet both men went through wild teenage years that involved drinking and getting out of hand before both rebelled against their rebellion and found their "destiny" in religious-based violence. Do social and economic conditions in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries contribute to the disillusionment of young men and their embrace of terrorism? What patterns exist that make it likely that other bin Ladens and other Zarqawis will emerge in the years ahead? None of these questions are addressed in "Zarqawi." What's in the book that helps put Zarqawi's life in context is a long appendix, which includes a 19-page letter written by Zarqawi to his fellow insurgents in Iraq and elsewhere. Along with some poetically written phrases ("even if we are separate in body the distance is small between our hearts"), the letter suggests that Zarqawi has an almost pathological need to hate -- that if it's not the Americans, the Jews and the Israelis who've ruined the planet, it's everyone else who's not a real Muslim, including Shiites, a minority branch of Islam that believes that Ali ibn Abi Talib was the legitimate successor to the religion's prophet. "The most vile people in the human race," Zarqawi calls them before rationalizing his hatred: Shiites practice customs (like organizing public funeral processions) that are heretical, they disparage Sunnis (who make up the dominant variety of Islam), and they cooperate with Iraq's American occupiers. "In our view, they are the key element of change," Zarqawi writes. "... In making them our targets and striking at the heart of (their) religious, political and military structures we will trigger their rage against the Sunnis. ... Our fight against the Shiites is the way to draw the nation (of Islam) into battle." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #4 You watched Clerks, Robert? Somehow the counterculture has become so passe... |
| Posted by: asedwich 2005-07-31 21:02 |
| #3 His resume includes a short stint as manager of a video store. His best friend ran the convenience store next door. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-07-31 20:16 |
| #2 I'll disdain you if you really want, Super Hose. But I won't enjoy it. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-07-31 19:58 |
| #1 I am disappointed at his lack of distain for the Irish. I feel slighted. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2005-07-31 13:51 |