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Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (Arabic: أَبُو مُصْعَبٍ ٱلزَّرْقَاوِيُّ, ’Abū Muṣ‘ab az-Zarqāwī, Father of Musab, from Zarqa; English pronunciation ⓘ; October 30, 1966 – June 7, 2006), born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh (أَحْمَدُ فَضِيلِ ٱلنَّزَالِ ٱلْخَلَايْلَةَ, ’Aḥmad Faḍīl an-Nazāl al-Ḫalāyla), was a ...
- 1989–2006
Learn about the life, activities, and legacy of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of ISIS and al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the leader of other terrorist groups. Find out his date of birth, place of residence, arrest, designations, rhetorical style, and more.
- His Nickname Was Once “The Green Man”
- Osama Bin Laden Was Initially Unimpressed by Him
- The Cia Had A Plan to Kill Him Before The U.S. Invaded Iraq
- The U.S. Had A Role in Raising His Profile
- He Pushed For An Islamic State Before Bin Laden Did
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Zarqawi grew up in Zarqa, Jordan, an industrial city of some 850,000. He worked as a video-store clerk for a time, but was fired from the job. He belonged to local gangs, had a reputation for using drugs and was even rumored to have worked as a pimp. Zarqawi was also into tattoos — so much so that he earned the nickname “The Green Man” for the amou...
After he was released from prison in 1999, Zarqawi traveled to Afghanistan, where he hoped to meet Osama bin Laden. “When he does go to Kandahar to try to meet with bin Laden, he’s rejected,” according to Nada Bakos, a former CIA analyst who spoke to FRONTLINE. “At this point, Zarqawi is so low on the totem pole, as to something that was just benea...
In 2002, Zarqawi made his way to a terrorist camp in northern Iraq, which in the run-up to the U.S. invasion was being monitored by the CIA. “We literally had guys that were working for us that were inside the camp,” Sam Faddis, who ran a CIA kill/capture team, told FRONTLINE in the below excerpt from The Secret History of ISIS. “They were working ...
Prior to the Iraq invasion, the CIA was given the job of investigating whether Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein had conspired to stage the 9/11 attacks. Officials in the Bush administration believed Zarqawi may have been the link between the two, but as Faddis told FRONTLINE, “We never found any indication that Zarqawi was in Baghdad working for Saddam ...
As the civil war raged in April 2006, Zarqawi did something bold: For the first time ever, he revealed his face on camera. In a 34-minute propaganda video, Zarqawi is shown meeting with his lieutenants, firing an American machine gun, and describing himself as “the brains of Al Qaeda in Iraq.” Zarqawi would also use the video to make a surprising p...
A profile of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the mastermind behind the sectarian warfare that tore Iraq apart after the U.S. invasion and the creation of ISIS. Learn about his rise, his role in the insurgency, his death, and his legacy.
- 3 min
- Jason M. Breslow
Jun 8, 2006 · A backgrounder on the terrorist leader who coordinated suicide bombings in Amman, Madrid, and Iraq, and beheaded an American contractor. Learn about his life, his affiliation with al-Qaeda, his myths and myth-busting, and his death in 2006.
- Lee Hudson Teslik
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Jul 1, 2006 · Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, barely forty and barely literate, a Bedouin from the Bani Hassan tribe, was until recently almost unknown outside his native Jordan. Then, on February 5, 2003, Secretary of ...
A former CIA analyst reveals how Zarqawi, the founder of ISIS, rose from a criminal and a thug to a religious leader and a terrorist. She explains how he was radicalized, trained, and arrested in Jordan, and how he became involved in the 9/11 plot and the war in Iraq. She also shares her views on why the U.S. should have acted earlier to stop him.
- Jason M. Breslow
Jun 8, 2006 · BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 8 — Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in an American airstrike on an isolated safe house north of Baghdad at 6:15 p.m. local time on Wednesday, top ...
