Abu musab al-zarqawi biography graphic organizer

He soon ran afoul of the authorities and was jailed for drug possession and sexual assault. Ironically, it was probably his criminal activities that first drew him into the city's abject and lawless Palestinian refugee camp, where he was exposed to radical Salafist preachers. He quickly fell under their influence and gave up drugs and alcohol.

After acquiring a clerical job in the local municipality, he married one of his maternal cousins. Inhowever, Zarqawi abruptly left his family to go to Afghanistan. By this time, Soviet troops had already pulled out of the country — evidently he was expecting to join a triumphant march on Kabul and witness the establishment of the world's first Sunni Islamist state.

Instead, he saw the Mujahideen front fragment along tribal and ethnic lines, unable to deliver the coup de grace to the "godless" Soviet-installed regime in Kabul for three years. Zarqawi is believed to have taken part in some fighting, but he mainly worked as a correspondent for a radical Islamist magazine during this period. Byhe was spending most of his time in Peshawar, Pakistan — once a way station for Arab volunteers going to Afghanistan, now teeming with disillusioned Arab fighters debating what to do next.

It is here that Zarqawi came under the influence of Muhammad al-Maqdisi aka Issam al-Barqawia well-known radical Salafist thinker and fellow Jordanian. Together they established a network called Bayat al-Imam to organize Jordanian Afghan veterans. After the fall of Kabul inas rival Mujahideen commanders finally "liberated" the Afghan capital only to turn their guns on each other and tear the city to shreds, Zarqawi and Maqdisi returned to Jordan to prepare for a jihad closer to home.

One thing that Zarqawi had not learned from Afghanistan's swaggering militia environment was how to operate discretely. Upon his return, he began publicly condemning the government and denouncing mainstream clerics who supported it — a bad idea made worse by the fact that he had been naively stockpiling weapons and explosives in his own home.

In Marchsecurity forces raided his house, discovered the arms cache and arrested him. Zarqawi was brought before the state security court on charges of membership in an illegal organization and weapons possession — a predicament that might not have been so dire had he treated the court respectfully. He did not. The first defendant in this bill was the late His Majesty King Hussein and the second was me I was expected to inform the first defendant of the charges," recalls the judge who presided over the trial.

Maqdisi quickly established a loyal following among the prisoners, with Zarqawi who worked out incessantly with buckets of rocks acting as his enforcer. His name is Abu Musa ibn al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi was born in Jordan in In the mids, he went to Afghanistan and fought against the Soviet Army for several years. Upon returning home, he attempted to start an Islamic revolution, which led to his imprisonment.

After seven years, he was released and returned to Afghanistan. The Taliban entrusted him with a crucial task: recruiting and training recruits. Musa'ib established a training center in the city of Herat. The Taliban's training facility flourished, and "Al-Qaeda" provided scholarships to outstanding students in combat and political training.

In Afghanistan, while fighting against the Americans, Zarqawi gained command experience and lost a leg. He was transported to Iraq, where he remained silent for a long time. However, in Afghanistan, when the remaining Taliban members incited themselves with simple rhetoric, Zarqawi's name began to be shouted immediately after Osama's.

Abu musab al-zarqawi biography graphic organizer: In this first chapter, we present

Help us build the largest biographies collection on the web! Add a New Bio. Powered by CITE. Notify me of new comments via email. Cancel Report. Create a new account. President George W. Bush, he says: "Why don't you tell people that your soldiers are committing suicide, taking drugs and hallucination pills to help them sleep? What is coming is even worse.

The United States Army aired an unedited tape of Zarqawi in May highlighting the fact that he did not know how to clear a stoppage on the stolen M Squad Automatic Weapon he was using. A document found in Zarqawi's safe house indicates that the group was trying to provoke the U. It is not known whether America is serious in its animosity towards Iran, because of the big support Iran is offering to America in its war in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

Hence, it is necessary first to exaggerate the Iranian danger and to convince America, and the West in general, of the real danger coming from Iran After the war in AfghanistanZarqawi appeared on a U. According to The Washington Post and some other sources, he formally swore loyalty Bay'ah to bin Laden in October and was in turn appointed bin Laden's deputy.

Before the invasion of AfghanistanZarqawi was the leader of an Islamic militant group with some connections to al-Qaeda. In an interview on Al-Majd TVformer al-Qaeda member Walid Khan, who was in Afghanistan fighting alongside Zarqawi's group explained that from the day al-Zarqawi's group arrived, there were disagreements, differences of opinion with bin Laden.

He intervened and smoothed the relations between Zarqawi and Al Qaeda leadership. It was agreed that Zarqawi would be given the funds to start up his training camp outside the Afghan city of Herat, near the Iranian border.

Abu musab al-zarqawi biography graphic organizer: This report was authored by the

Zarqawi's group continued to receive funding from Osama bin Laden and pursued "a largely distinct, if occasionally overlapping agenda", according to The Washington Post. The Washington Post also reported that German Intelligence wiretaps found that in the fall of Zarqawi grew angry when his members were raising money in Germany for al-Qaeda's local leadership.

Inbin Laden repeatedly summoned al-Zarqawi from Herat to Kandahar, asking that he take an oath of allegiance to him. Al-Zarqawi refused; he didn't want to take sides against the Northern Alliance and doubted the fervor of bin Laden and the Taliban. When the United States launched its air war inside Afghanistan, on October 7,al-Zarqawi joined forces with al-Qaeda and the Taliban for the first time.

He and his Jund al-Sham fought in and around Herat and Kandahar. When Zarqawi finally did take the oath in Octoberit was after eight months of negotiations. When Shadi Abdellah was arrested inhe cooperated with authorities, but suggested that al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden were not as closely linked as previously believed, in large part because al-Zarqawi disagreed with many of the sentiments put forward by Mahfouz Ould al-Walid for al-Qaeda.

In the book he reveals that in Julyan associate of Zarqawi had been detained and, during interrogations, linked Zarqawi with al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah. During or shortly before the invasion of Iraq in MarchZarqawi returned to Iraq, where he met with Bin Laden's military chief, Saif al-Adel Muhammad Ibrahim Makawiwho asked him to coordinate the entry of al-Qaeda operatives into Iraq through Syria.

Although many of these foreign fighters were not members of Tawhid, they became more or less dependent on Zarqawi's local contacts once they entered the unfamiliar country. Moreover, given Tawhid's superior intelligence gathering capability, it made little sense for non-Tawhid operatives to plan and carry out attacks without coordinating with Zarqawi's lieutenants.

In the letter to bin Laden, Zarqawi wrote:. You, gracious brothers, are the leaders, guides, and symbolic figures of jihad and battle. We do not see ourselves as fit to challenge you, and we have never striven to achieve glory for ourselves. All that we hope is that we will be the spearhead, the enabling vanguard, and the bridge on which the Islamic nation crosses over to the victory that is promised and the tomorrow to which we aspire.

This is our vision, and we have explained it. This is our path, and we have made it clear. If you agree with us on it, if you adopt it as a program and road, and if you are convinced of the idea of fighting the sects of apostasy, we will be your readied soldiers, working under your banner, complying with your orders, and indeed swearing fealty to you publicly and in the news media, vexing the infidels and gladdening those who preach the oneness of Allah.

On that day, the believers will rejoice in Allah's victory. If things appear otherwise to you, we are brothers, and the disagreement will not spoil our friendship. This is a cause in which we are cooperating for the good and supporting jihad. Awaiting your response, may Allah preserve you as keys to good and reserves for Islam and its people.

In Octobera message on an Islamic Web site posted in the name of the abu musab al-zarqawi biography graphic organizer of Zarqawi's group announced that Zarqawi had sworn his network's allegiance to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. The message stated:. Numerous messages were passed between 'Abu Musab' Allah protect him and the al-Qaeda brotherhood over the past eight months, establishing a dialogue between them.

No sooner had the calls been cut off than Allah chose to restore them, and our most generous brothers in al-Qaeda came to understand the strategy of the Tawhid wal-Jihad organization in Iraq, the land of the two rivers and of the Caliphs, and their hearts warmed to its methods and overall mission. Let it be known that al-Tawhid wal-Jihad pledges both its leaders and its soldiers to the mujahid commander, Sheikh 'Osama bin Laden' in word and in deed and to jihad for the sake of Allah until there is no more discord [among the ranks of Islam] and all of the religion turns toward Allah By Allah, O sheikh of the mujahideen, if you bid us plunge into the ocean, we would follow you.

If you ordered it so, we would obey. If you forbade us something, we would abide by your wishes. For what a fine commander you are to the armies of Islam, against the inveterate infidels and apostates! On December 27,Al Jazeera broadcast an audiotape of bin Laden calling Zarqawi "the prince of al Qaeda in Iraq" and asked "all our organization brethren to listen to him and obey him in his good deeds.

Abu musab al-zarqawi biography graphic organizer: on april 23, , clashes

In MayPresident George W. Bush declassified a U. Zarqawi gave al-Qaeda a highly visible presence in Iraq at a time when its original leaders went into hiding or were killed after the September 11 attacks in the United States. In SeptemberU. Andrews in Scotland"A number of al-Qaeda figures were uncomfortable with the tactics he was using in Iraq It was quite clear with Zarqawi that as far as the al-Qaeda core leadership goes, they couldn't control the way in which their network affiliates operated.

In JuneSecretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld conceded that Zarqawi's ties to al-Qaeda may have been much more ambiguous—and that he may have been more of a rival than a lieutenant to bin Laden. Zarqawi "may very well not have sworn allegiance to [bin Laden]", Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing. According to the Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence released in September"in April the CIA learned from a senior al-Qa'ida detainee that al-Zarqawi had rebuffed several efforts by bin Ladin to recruit him.

The detainee claimed that al-Zarqawi had religious differences with bin Ladin and disagreed with bin Laden's singular focus against the United States. The CIA assessed in April that al-Zarqawi planned and directed independent terrorist operations without al Qaeda direction, but assessed that he 'most likely contracts out his network's services to al Qaeda in return for material and financial assistance from key al Qaeda facilitators.

In the April National Intelligence Estimatedeclassified in Septemberit asserts, "Al-Qa'ida, now merged with Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's network, is exploiting the situation in Iraq to attract new recruits and donors and to maintain its leadership role. Regarding Zarqawi, Powell stated that:. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants.

When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp. And this camp is located in northeastern Iraq. He traveled to Baghdad in May for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day. During this stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there.

These Al Qaeda affiliates, based in Baghdad, now abu musab al-zarqawi biography graphic organizer the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they've now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months. We asked a friendly security service to approach Baghdad about extraditing Zarqawi and providing information about him and his close associates.

This service contacted Iraqi officials twice, and we passed details that should have made it easy to find Zarqawi. The network remains in Baghdad. Zarqawi recuperated in Baghdad after being wounded while fighting along with Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. Despite Iraq's pervasive security apparatus and its receipt of detailed information about al-Zarqawi's possible location, however, Iraqi Intelligence told the foreign government service it could not locate al-Zarqawi.

A Jordanian security official told The Washington Post that documents recovered after the overthrow of Saddam show that Iraqi agents detained some of Zarqawi's operatives but released them after questioning. He also told The Washington Post that the Iraqis warned the Zarqawi operatives that the Jordanians knew where they were. Abdullah revealed that Saddam Hussein had rejected repeated requests from Jordan to hand over al-Zarqawi.

According to Abdullah, "We had information that he entered Iraq from a neighboring country, where he lived and what he was doing. We informed the Iraqi authorities about all this detailed information we had, but they didn't respond. One high-level Jordanian intelligence official told The Atlantic that al-Zarqawi, after leaving Afghanistan in Decemberfrequently traveled to the Sunni Triangle of Iraq where he expanded his network, recruited and trained new fighters, and set up bases, safe houses, and military training camps.

He said, however, "We know Zarqawi better than he knows himself. And I can assure you that he never had any links to Saddam. Counterterrorism scholar Loretta Napoleoni quotes former Jordanian parliamentarian Layth Shubaylat, a radical Islamist opposition figure, [ ] who was personally acquainted with both Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein:. First of all, I don't think the two ideologies go together, I'm sure the former Iraqi leadership saw no interest in contacting al-Zarqawi or al-Qaeda operatives.

The mentality of al-Qaeda simply doesn't go with the Ba'athist one. How could he accept Saddam Hussein, a secular dictator? A CIA report in late concluded that there was no evidence Saddam's government was involved or even aware of this medical treatment, and found no conclusive evidence the regime had harbored Zarqawi. According to the Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence, "The CIA provided four reports detailing the debriefings of Abu Zubaydaha captured senior coordinator for al-Qaida responsible for training and recruiting.

Abu Zubaydah said that he was not aware of a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida. He also said, however, that any relationship would be highly compartmented and went on to name al-Qaida members who he thought had good contacts with the Iraqis. For instance, Abu Zubaydah indicated that he had heard that an important al-Qaida associate, Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, and others had good relationships with Iraqi Intelligence.

A classified memo obtained by Stephen F. Feith in response to questions posed by the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence, stated the following regarding al-Zarqawi:. Sensitive reporting indicates senior terrorist planner and close al Qaeda associate al Zarqawi has had an operational alliance with Iraqi officials.

According to sensitive reporting, al Zarqawi was setting up sleeper cells in Baghdad to be activated in case of a U. Such cooperation could include IIS provision of a secure operating bases [sic] and steady access to arms and explosives in preparation for a possible U. Al Zarqawi's procurements from the Iraqis also could support al Qaeda operations against the U.

The memo was a collection of raw intelligence reports and drew no conclusions. The Senate Report on Prewar Intelligence concluded that Zarqawi was not a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda: "Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi.

The official stated that a foreign government requested in October that the IIS locate five individuals suspected of involvement in the murder of Laurence Foley, which led to the arrest of Abu Yasim Sayyem in early The official stated it "was ludicrous to think that the IIS had any involvement with al-Qaeda or Zarqawi," and suggested Saddam let Sayyem go because he "would participate in striking U.

The letter is part of the Operation Iraqi Freedom documents. The letter asks agents in the country to be on the lookout for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and another unnamed man. Pictures of both men were attached. The letter issued the following 3 directives: [ citation needed ]. The documents also contain responses to this request. One response, dated Auguststates "Upon verifying the information through our sources and friends in the field as well as office 3we found no information to confirm the presence of the above-mentioned in our area of operation.

Please review, we suggest circulating the contents of this message. Follow up on the presence of those subjects is ordered, as well as a comparison of their pictures with those of Jordanian subjects living in Iraq. This may be referring to pictures of Abu Musaab al Zarqawi and another man on pp. They found a comfortable and secure environment in which they moved people and supplies to support Zarqawi's operations in northern Iraq.

According to Tenet, while Zarqawi did find a safe haven in Iraq and did supervise camps in northeastern Iraq run by the Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam"the intelligence did not show any Iraqi authority, direction, or control over any of the many specific terrorist acts carried out by al-Qa'ida. Writing innine years after his death, an anonymous author in the New York Review of Books describes al-Zarqawi as having been responsible for "turning an insurgency against US troops" in Iraq "into a Shia—Sunni civil war".

He personally beheaded civilians on video; directed suicide bombs at targets that other jihadis considered off limits like the UN, NGOs, and Arab embassies; and struck Shia religious targets with the ultimately successfully goal of provoking a destabilizing Sunni—Shia civil war. Even Al Qaeda thought he was going too far While the US " troop surge " and " Awakening " movement left his movement "all but dead" init survived and metastasized into ISIS according to author David Ignatius.

Some months before and after his killing, several sources claimed that Zarqawi was variously an American "Boogeyman" and product of its war propaganda, the product of faulty U. According to the Commonwealth Institute his notoriety was the product of U. This report cited an unnamed U. On February 18,Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr made similar charges:.

I believe he is fictitious. He is a knife or a pistol in the hands of the occupier. I believe that all three — the occupation, the takfir i. Mark Kimmitt says of the propaganda campaign that there "was no attempt to manipulate the press". Derek Harveywho served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and then was one of the top officers handling Iraq intelligence issues on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staffwarned an Army meeting in"Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will — made him more important than he really is, in some ways.

The Washington Post also notes, "One briefing slide about U. George W. Casey Jr. On July 4,the U. Zarqawi well, including former cellmates, voiced doubts about his ability to be an insurgent leader, or the leader of anything. In a story detailing her abu musab al-zarqawi biography graphic organizer in Iraq, Jill Carrolla journalist for The Christian Science Monitorcasts doubt on al-Zarqawi's alleged unimportance.

She describes how one of her captors, who identified himself as Abdullah Rashid and leader of the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq, conveyed to her that:. The Americans were constantly saying that the mujahideen in Iraq were led by foreigners So, the Iraqi insurgents went to Zarqawi and insisted that an Iraqi be put in charge. And it seemed to me, based on snatches of conversations, that two cell leaders under him — Abu Rasha and Abu Ahmed [al-Kuwaiti] — might also be on the council.

At various times, I heard my captors discussing changes in their plans because of directives from the council and Zarqawi. According to NBC Newsthe Pentagon had pushed to "take out" Zarqawi's operation at least three times prior to the invasion of Iraqbut had been vetoed by the National Security Council. Paraphrasing his remarks, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation stated Scheuer claimed, "the United States deliberately turned down several opportunities to kill terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the lead-up to the Iraq war.

DeLong, however, claims that the reasons for abandoning the opportunity to take out Zarqawi's camp was that the Pentagon feared that an attack would contaminate the area with chemical weapon materials:. We almost took them out three months before the Iraq war started. We almost took that thing, but we were so concerned that the chemical cloud from there could devastate the region that we chose to take them by land rather than by smart weapons.

In his memoir Decision PointsPresident Bush recounted:. The question was whether to bomb the poisons lab in the summer of We held a series of NSC meetings on that topic Colin [Powell] and Condi [Condoleezza Rice] felt a strike on the lab would create an international firestorm and disrupt our efforts to build a coalition to confront Saddam I decided to continue on the diplomatic track.

Claims of harm to Zarqawi changed over time. Early inthere were unverified reports from Afghan Northern Alliance members that Zarqawi had been killed by a missile attack in Afghanistan. Many news sources repeated the claim. Later, Kurdish groups claimed that Zarqawi had not died in the missile strike, but had been severely injured, and went to Baghdad in to have his leg amputated.

Bush authorization to invade Iraq, Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati, Ohiothat repeated as fact the claim that he had sought medical treatment in Baghdad. Powell repeated this claim in his February speech to the UN, urging a resolution for war, and it soon became "common knowledge" that Zarqawi had a prosthetic leg. InNewsweek reported that some "senior U.

When the video of the Berg beheading was released incredence was given to the claim that Zarqawi was alive and active. The man identified as Zarqawi in the video did not appear to have a prosthetic leg. Videos of Zarqawi aired in that clearly showed him with both legs intact. When Zarqawi's body was autopsied, X-rays revealed that his right lower leg was fractured.

In Marchan insurgent group in Iraq issued a statement saying that Zarqawi had been killed in April The statement said that he was unable to escape the missile attack because of his prosthetic leg. His followers claimed he was killed in a U. On May 24,it was reported on an Islamic website that a deputy would take command of Al-Qaeda while Zarqawi recovered from injuries sustained in an attack.

The extent of his injuries is not known, although some radical Islamic websites called for prayers for his health. He was also said to have subsequently left Iraq for a neighbouring country, accompanied by two physicians. Al-Kalesi also claimed "His family in Jordan even held a ceremony after his death. On November 20,some news sources reported that Zarqawi may have been killed in a coalition assault on a house in Mosul ; five of those in the house were killed in the assault while the other three died through using ' suicide belts ' of explosives.