• Like Osama bin Laden, Zarqawi, a Jordanian, led Arab fighters against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. After Soviets quit Afghanistan, he went back to Jordan

• Spent 7 yrs in Jordan prison for conspiring to topple monarchy

• Fled Jordan after release. Was sentenced to death in absentia for plotting attacks on American and Israeli tourists

• Returned to Afghanistan, set up a camp in Herat where he trained men in manufacture and use of poison gases. Renewed contact with al-Qaeda

ENTERS IRAQ

• Fled to Iraq in 2001 after US missile strike on his Herat base

• Led Tawhid and Jihad group, merging it in late 2004 with bin Laden’s al-Qaeda to head the most feared insurgent group

• In October 2002, Zarqawi was blamed for the assassination of US aid official Laurence Foley in Amman

• Zarqawi was behind spectacular bombings, assassinations, beheading of foreign hostages

• A Jordanian, he carried a $25m bounty on his head; the US is offering the same sum for bin Laden’s head

• In 2003, he was named as the brains behind a series of lethal bombings—from Casablanca to Istanbul; Iraq remained his main theatre

WHY THEY WANTED HIM DEAD

• In February 2004, the US released an intercepted letter to show Zarqawi was targeting Shias to ignite sectarian conflict, undermine US presence in Iraq

... contd.