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Is he the next bin Laden?
SINCE COLIN POWELL first brought Abu Musab al Zarqawi to the world's attention as "an associate and collaborator" of Osama bin Laden in February 2003, we have witnessed firsthand his rapid rise to the top of the terrorist heap. He has left his mark on attacks around the world, from Iraq to Turkey to Spain. The escalation of Zarqawi's profile and rhetoric may mean he is mounting a challenge to bin Laden's leadership of the global jihad.
In some respects Zarqawi's development as a holy warrior parallels bin Laden's. He fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, associated with a wide variety of terrorist groups, and ran his own network of training camps in Afghanistan. He even has a hard-core terrorist and ideologue, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, as a top lieutenant, echoing the relationship between bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri.
But despite these similarities Zarqawi has taken pains to distinguish himself from al Qaeda. Zarqawi never pledged the bayat, the oath of allegiance, to bin Laden. He has links to at least three terrorist groups and runs his own, Attawhid Wal Jihad (Unity and Jihad), or simply al Tawhid. Shadi Abdallah, a Jordanian terrorist imprisoned in Germany, told his German interrogators in 2002 that Zarqawi was "against al Qaeda."
The main disagreement between bin Laden and Zarqawi seems to be over strategy. While al Qaeda targets the "far enemy," the United States, Zarqawi focuses his rage on "near enemies" such as Syria, Jordan, and Israel. Zarqawi's choice is not just strategic; it is personal. A Jordanian of Palestinian heritage, he spent seven years in a Jordanian prison he describes as the "Arabs' Guantanamo" for plotting to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy.
But Iraq has...