Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, Ali al-Sistani has denounced the vast, sudden and unexplained increase in the wealth of the family of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, in recent months, according to the Sout al-Iraq (Voice of Iraq) website. It speculates that at least some of the al-Zarqawi family's new-found wealth may have come from supporters of Iraq's defunct Baath party.According to reliable sources in al-Zarqawi's hometown of Zarqa, recent months have seen his family's previously modest economic status rise to an affluence typical of businessmen and property owners, Sout al-Iraq says. "Some in the al-Zarqa neighbourhood of the city say that al-Zarqawi's family now has a lot of money obtained from various sources, but no-one can specify the identity and nature of these sources," the website claims.
Al-Zarqawi was born Ahmad Fadil Nazal al-Khalaylah in 1966, one of ten children (four boys and six girls) and raised in the rough al-Kasara suburb of al-Zarqa, a working class town. The family home has been described as being in a particularly unpleasant area near the town cemetery and an abandoned quarry. His father was a local tribal leader and retired army officer. When he died in 1984, 17-year-old al-Zarqawi dropped out of school and fell into a life of drinking, drug abuse and violence on the streets of Zarqa. He was jailed for drug possession and sexual assault and his criminal activities are thought to have led him to the town's Palestinian refugee camp where he was exposed to radical Salafist preachers.