Q. Well let me just start by asking a really simple question from what youÂ’ve looked at on the internet: how significant is Abu Musab al Zarqawi or some people have actually said to me in our research for this that his role is totally exaggerated.
A. I think thatÂ’s a mistake. I think anyone who thinks that ZarqawiÂ’s role is exaggerated doesnÂ’t understand the way that al Qaeda functions. Al Qaeda is an organisation that works like a leach, it requires a host country from which to manifest itself. It needs a conflict, it breathes on conflict, on violence. When you see al QaedaÂ’s origins in Afghanistan, it breathes out of the Afghan civil war, it continues through the Bosnian civil war, through the Chechnya civil war, it breathes on violence and conflict. It needs military leaders. Without those military leaders, without young very militant folks like Abu Musab al Zarqawi, al Qaeda doesnÂ’t move forward. Zarqawi is the new face of al Qaeda, heÂ’s the cutting edge sword of al Qaeda he is the terrorist arm of al Qaeda right now and everyone thatÂ’s willing to carry out a suicide operation, any one whoÂ’s willing to crash a plain into a building, any one whoÂ’s willing to blow up a bomb, that person idolizes Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Last month I was in a protest rally in London and it was made very clear by the people that were organising that rally that we must speak to the infidels and the language of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden because that is the only language that they understand. He is a symbol, he is a military leader, he is al Qaeda.
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