One-Minute Article: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has a cold

Tim Cavanaugh | June 8, 2006

Earlybird Mary Anne Weaver gets the worm with a fully rendered third-person profile of the Zero of Zarqa ready to go from The Atlantic's July issue: "The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi"

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He would later rename himself Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

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"At the time of jihad, you can get vast amounts of money with a simple telephone call. I myself once collected three million dollars, which my father had arranged with a single call."

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As I wandered with my driver around the al-Masoum neighborhood—visiting the al-Falah mosque, a tiny green-latticed structure where al-Zarqawi had been "returned" to Islam; searching for the cemetery that had been his favorite childhood playground (which we never found); and talking to al-Zarqawi's neighbors and friends—it became clear to me that although government officials in Amman had said that al-Zarqawi's popularity had plummeted since he had bombed the hotels there, Zarqa, at least, still appeared to be his town.

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Whether al-Zarqawi was ever tortured is a matter of dispute: some of his followers say he was; Jordanian government officials, perhaps predictably, say he was not

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"Zarqawi had the ambition to become what he has, but whatever happens, even if he becomes the most popular figure in Iraq, he can never go against the symbolism that bin Laden represents."

Comments

|6.9.06 @ 12:35AM|#

Tim, this random sampling thing is soooo 5 minutes ago. I'm totally over it now.

|6.9.06 @ 1:41AM|#

...the symbolism that the that bin Laden represents."

And that symbolism would be the fiction the US government pushes that bin Laden was behind 9/11!

Ok, I don't necessarily believe that, but the fellow in that alleged video (the only "solid" evidence) of bin Laden just doesn't look like him. Also, the guy is sporting some un-fundamentalist Muslin accessories, which, in all previous footage of bin Laden, he has never been seen wearing.

I'm skeptical.

DeRex|6.9.06 @ 7:12AM|#

Hey I have the video of the Zarqawi big boom.. come check it out. www.delorumrex1.blogspot.com
Boom! The video