Upon his return home a few years later, he helped start a local Islamic militant group called Jund al-Sham, which quickly attracted the attention of Jordanian authorities. In 1992, he was sent to prison, where he developed a reputation as a cellblock enforcer but also adopted more radical Islamic beliefs, according to Jordanian officials and acquaintances.
Seven years later, he was released in a general amnesty by Jordan's King Abdullah. Within months, according to Jordanian officials, Zarqawi tried to resurrect his Jund al-Sham organization and became involved in what became known as the millennium plot, a bid to bomb the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman and several tourist sites in Jordan just before New Year's Day 2000. But the plot was discovered in its late stages and Zarqawi fled to Pakistan.
An Internet posting last week identified the killer of American contractor Eugene "Jack" Armstrong, kneeling, as Abu Musab Zarqawi, at center with knife.
(AP Television)
|
|
That year, with his visa revoked by Pakistani authorities, he crossed the border into Afghanistan and made his first contacts with the leadership of al Qaeda.
According to Jordanian officials and court testimony by jailed followers in Germany, Zarqawi met in Kandahar and Kabul with bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders. He asked them for assistance and money to set up his own training camp in Herat, near the Iranian border.
With al Qaeda's support, the camp opened and soon served as a magnet for Jordanian militants. At a time when al Qaeda was immersed in planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Zarqawi had other targets in mind.
In mid-2001, he returned to Kandahar to ask al Qaeda for $35,000 to finance a plan for his fighters to infiltrate Israel, according to a U.S. Treasury Department report. In early September, a few days before the hijackings in the United States, he met in Iran with a Jordanian ally and ordered him to set up a cell in Germany to strike Jewish targets there, according to files compiled by German investigators. German police broke up the group before it could carry out any attacks.
About a month later, Zarqawi was back in Afghanistan and joined Taliban and al Qaeda fighters resisting the U.S.-led invasion. In late 2001, he was wounded in the chest during a firefight and broke three ribs, according to a Jordanian intelligence source.
By January 2002, he and many of his followers crossed into Iran, with the help of fraudulent passports delivered by supporters in Europe, German investigative files show.
Crossing Borders Often
Zarqawi's whereabouts in 2002 are difficult to pin down, although Western and Arab intelligence agencies say that he moved frequently and with relative ease among Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, expanding his network.
Powell, in his speech to the United Nations, said Zarqawi arrived in Baghdad in March 2002 for medical treatment and stayed for two months "while he recuperated to fight another day." During his convalescence, Zarqawi was joined by a dozen followers who moved money, supplies and al Qaeda-affiliated fighters throughout Iraq, Powell added.
About the same time, Jordanian authorities indicted Zarqawi in absentia for his role in the millennium plot in Amman and issued a warrant for his arrest. Jordanian investigators had followed his trail to Iraq and tried to persuade Saddam Hussein's government to extradite him.
"There is proof that he was in Iraq during that time," the Jordanian security official said. "We sent many memos to Iraq during this time, asking them to identify his position, where he was, how he got weapons, how he smuggled them across the border."
Hussein's government never responded, according to the official, who added that documents recovered after its overthrow in 2003 show that Iraqi agents did detain some Zarqawi operatives but released them after questioning. Furthermore, the Iraqis warned the Zarqawi operatives that the Jordanians knew where they were, he said.
After he recovered from his injuries, Zarqawi continued to cross borders in the region frequently, using disguises and fake passports to stay one step ahead of the Jordanians.
