Firas Al-Atraqchi reviews the legacy of a man who for the US public was the face of the insurgency and for many Iraqis was an invention of the occupation is believed to have first entered Iraq via Iran in 2002, settling in the northern regions of Iraqi Kurdistan, an area not under the control of the Baathist government of Saddam Hussein but administered by the Kurdish parties of Barzani and Talabani. Before the 2003 invasion, Zarqawi's name and past were used by the Bush administration as evidence of the link between Saddam and Osama Bin Laden. Though this latter charge was never proven, by the time the first US tanks rolled into Iraq a majority of the US public believed Saddam was in collusion with Zarqawi and co-responsible for 9/11. This was phase one -- linking Iraq, through Zarqawi (or the aura of Zarqawi) to the terrorists who attacked the United States. Zarqawi's usefulness had hardly dawned. By the time his name started to resound in the Iraqi rumour mill, appearing on the front pages of US media, US forces were bogged down in a guerrilla war that would increasingly bleed the occupation of monies, materiel and morale. Into this quagmire, Zarqawi appeared. He gained notoriety when he assumed responsibility for the beheading of American Nicholas Berg, in one of the more gruesome videos to have emerged from this conflict. (The executor is himself masked. It is believed to be Zarqawi because the text with the video and later speeches alluded that it was the Jordanian himself behind the killing.) Almost immediately, Zarqawi and the resistance in Iraq were interminably linked. In the US, Zarqawi's portfolio of beheading videos convinced the public that the resistance was itself inhuman, diabolical, evil and impossible to negotiate with. By continuing to perform high profile executions accompanied by fiery, often incomprehensible rhetoric, he managed to portray himself as the mastermind of the resistance. Every attack on US forces was attributed to him. The fact that he was neither Iraqi nor openly fighting for Iraqi interests was ignored. The fact that he did not seek Iraq's unity, never once mentioning Iraqi sovereignty but rather dismissing it in favour of an Islamic Caliphate, was also disregarded. This was phase two -- permanently tarnishing, in the eyes of the world, the cause of the Iraqi resistance. Phase three involved turning guns on the Iraqi people. Suddenly, attacks on Iraqi Shia festivals became commonplace. Attacks on Shia shrines and houses of worship increased and Zarqawi proudly claimed them all. In order to leave no room for misunderstanding, Zarqawi released audiotapes calling for the destruction of the Shia, labelling them heretics, apostates and enemies of Islam. Because his Arab and foreign fighters had brought cash and munitions with them, the resistance, mostly comprised of Sunnis, were initially tolerant of Zarqawi. But when attacks against civilians and Shia religious sites increased, the Iraqi resistance distanced itself from him. During the January 2005 elections, Zarqawi issued ultimatums warning Sunnis not to vote, warning Sunni politicians that death awaited them, and saying he would openly attack the Shia community. Days ahead of the elections, the Iraqi resistance issued memorandums indicating they would not attack any polling stations, pollsters or voters. The damage by now had become irreversible. The resistance memorandum barely registered both in Iraq and abroad. Western media referred to Zarqawi as the figurehead of the Iraqi insurgency. Having created a fear of, and disassociations within, Iraqi nationalist groups, Zarqawi moved on to the fourth phase, ensuring all-out civil war. Several factors were already in place. First, the Iraqi resistance was now seen as terrorists standing in the way of Iraq's development. Resistance press releases calling for attacks only on occupation forces were dismissed. Second, Zarqawi's much-publicised hatred of the Shia and his appeals to kill all of them -- referred to as kuffar, or apostates -- incensed the Shia community. They were openly hostile to Sunnis for not denouncing and/or combating Zarqawi. With such suspicions now rife, all that was needed was a trigger. That came in the form of attacks on Shia mosques, increasing in deadliness until the bombing of Samarra's Al-Askariya Shrine. When this most sacred of shrines was decimated, the Shia community had had enough and revenge attacks against Sunnis skyrocketed with the ambivalent shrug of the shoulders of the Jaafari government. In March and April 2006, Iraq appeared on the verge of a civil war. The likes of Iranian Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani and senior members of the Shia bloc in the government demanded that the national security portfolio be handed over to the Badr Brigades, many of whom comprise the death squads and militia that have roamed cities and countryside with impunity. Persistently alluding to Zarqawi's menace, the Shia community said they could never relinquish control of the Interior Ministry. And it is because of Zarqawi that the Shia-led government looked the other way when evidence of death squads and Interior Ministry-run dungeons first emerged last September. By this time, other reports emerged from Iraq indicating that some resistance groups were now "hunting" Zarqawi. Then reports emerged of skirmishes and revenge attacks between Sunni tribes and Arab elements of the Zarqawi network. Apparently, Zarqawi's blessing of the killing of a tribal leader was the straw that broke the camel's back. But phase four never materialised in the way Zarqawi had hoped. All-out civil war did not occur, leading Zarqawi, whose prominence was now waning in and outside Iraq, to release a series of videotapes revealing his face for the first time in unmistakable clarity. This was followed by more rants against the Shia community that may have ultimately sealed his fate. Jordanian intelligence officers told the media they helped identify his whereabouts from the videos, although I find this to be dubious. US Army Major General Bill Caldwell said "tips and intelligence from senior Iraqi leaders from his network" betrayed Zarqawi from within. Given how Zarqawi fuelled sectarianism and plunged Iraq into wide-scale chaos, it is not surprising that many Iraqis -- and Arabs -- believed the Jordanian terrorist to have been an instrument of foreign occupation. Many believe that he enjoyed a utilitarian relationship with the US military: he referred to them as the infidels, with all who worked with them targeted for killing, while the Bush administration referred to him as proof of Al-Qaeda's dominance in Iraq and thus justification for a prolonged and bloody occupation. The noted Iraqi blogger, Riverbend, says: "His influence was greatly exaggerated but he was the justification for every single family they killed through military strikes and troops." Others see the killing of Zarqawi as a sign of hope. For the Iraqi journalist BT, who runs a blog named Baghdad Treasure: "Finally, the brutal Zarqawi, whose bloody campaign of beheadings and suicide bombings made him the worst terrorist in the world, was killed. Finally the thousands of families and victims he killed will rest in peace." With cautious optimism, many Iraqis are hoping Zarqawi's death will mean a significant drop in violence. By the time of the first sunset following the announcement of his death, however, blasts had killed some 40 Iraqis in Baghdad alone.
