• 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

• Bush says Zarqawi’s death gives Iraq’s new government “a chance to turn the tide”

WHY IT’S NOT YET OVER

• Tony Blair: “This (the killing in Iraq) isn’t going to change with the death of al-Zarqawi”

• Statement on Islamic website: “We tell our prince, Sheikh bin Laden, your soldiers in al-Qaeda in Iraq will continue along the same path that you set out for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi”

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