 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was believed to be behind many of the most headline-grabbing attacks of the conflict in Iraq. The Jordanian-born fighter rose to prominence as leader of the Islamist Tawhid and Jihad group in 2003.
| Tawhid was founded to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy. It was active in Europe at least as early as 2000. |
In 2004, al-Zarqawi announced that he pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and changed the organisation's name to al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The group carried out some of the most deadly attacks in Iraq since the US-led invasion, including the January 2005 bombing of a crowd of police and Iraqi National Guard recruits in the southern city of Hilla that killed 125 people. Al-Zarqawi is alleged to have personally beheaded at least two American hostages during 2004 - Nick Berg and Eugene Armstrong. During 2005, al-Qaeda in Iraq began to move their campaign beyond Iraq's borders - carrying out a suicide attack on a Jordanian hotel that killed 60 people and claiming responsibility for a rocket attack against Israel.
| That was a mere extension of the al-Qaeda operation to al-Tawhid. |
The US put a $25 million on his head, the same as for Osama bin Laden, and al-Zarqawi was sentenced to death three times in his native Jordan.
| Guess they can close the books on that one now... |
The group was also at the centre of the Iraqi sectarian conflict that has threatened to develop into all-out civil war.
| Zark and his organization are takfiri. Anybody who doesn't agree with them 100 percent is an infidel. That puts Shiites into the same category as Lutherans. |
Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for the bombing of Shia mosques and al-Zarqawi described Shia muslims as "enemies of Islam" in an audiotape posted on the internet in June. But analysts believe that despite being a prominent figure in the Iraqi uprising, his influence was often exaggerated by the media.
| Which just goes to show you don't have to be a genius, or even moderately smart, to be an analyst. |
His organisation was believed to be only 3,000 strong at most and US army officials admitted raising al-Zarqawi's profile by blaming attacks on his group, the Washington Post reported in April. After reports that he had been dislodged as political leader of the Iraqi uprising, al-Zarqawi released a video in May in an attempt to maintain his profile - a move that may have provided the US with information on his whereabouts.
Born Ahmad Fadhil Nazzal al-Khalayla in 1966, al-Zarqawi was known in the Jordanian industrial town of al-Zarqa as a small-time criminal. He adopted his Islamist radical ideology while in a Jordanian prison in the late 1990s. After being released in an amnesty, al-Zarqawi went in 1999 to Afghanistan, where he formed links with bin Laden. He fled during the US-led war that toppled the Taliban government in late 2001, passing through Iran to Iraq, according to US officials. |