Last week US forces in Iraq chose the first day of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, to launch a new offensive along the Syrian border against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man they blame for most of the violence racking the country. But, as before, all they have succeeded in doing is bolstering his myth.
No one had heard of Zarqawi until Colin Powell, then US Secretary of State, named him in the February 2003 speech to the UN Security Council which prepared the world for war in Iraq. At that stage, the Jordanian was not recognised as a leader by al-Qa'ida. But, thanks to his relentless promotion as a bogeyman by the US - most recently by President George Bush last week - and his subsequent endorsement by Osama bin Laden, Zarqawi, 38, is now every bit as dangerous as he has always been portrayed.
Their correspondence explains why the Jordanian wanted to drive a wedge between the Sunni and Shia insurgencies. Zarqawi feared a united nationalist resistance, which would necessarily be secular and would shun the Arab jihadists. Keeping the Islamist warriors at the forefront of the anti-American battle was paramount to building a Sunni Islamist state in Iraq. Thus, from the beginning, Zarqawi fought on two fronts: against the Shias and against the Americans.
And the West helped him obtain the endorsement he craved, by blaming him for every attack inside and outside Iraq, especially suicide missions and the resistance in Fallujah. In December 2004 Bin Laden finally granted his support and named him "emir" of al-Qa'ida in Iraq. That in turn has enabled the Jordanian to attract enough followers and resources to engage US forces while keeping up the suicide bombings against Shias that have brought Iraq to the brink of civil war. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is now at the core of the Iraqi insurgency, but he would not be there without both the US administration and al-Qa'ida. It is a surreal coincidence.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article318233.ece