Al-Zarqaa Sent the Most Youths to Wage Jihad in IraqAccording to the inquiry, "Al-Zarqaa, located near the Al-Ruseifah Palestinian refugee camp, is the capital of the Salafi Jihad movement in Jordan, and the place from which it emerged. Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi grew up in one of its neighborhoods, and from there set out for the Jihad in Afghanistan, and then for the Jihad in Iraq." Likewise, the cities of Al-Zarqaa, Al-Ruseifah, and Al-Salt are "the Jordanian cities that sent the most youths to fight in Iraq
The well-known Al-Zarqaa residents who were killed in Iraq were supporters of Al-Zarqawi, Abd Al-Hadi Daghlas, Yassin Jarrad, and Yazan Nabil Jarada. This is in addition to the dozens [from Al-Zarqaa] who were martyred before, in Afghanistan."
Al-Zarqaa Residents Figure Prominently at Herat Camp, Afghanistan
"It appears that it was at the Herat camp [in Afghanistan] that Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi became the field commander of the groups [of Jihad fighters]. This is also the camp that the Jihad fighters from Al-Zarqaa have mentioned repeatedly throughout the history of their movement. Anyone who follows the Salafi Jihad stream agrees that the Herat camp in Afghanistan is a major episode in the building of Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi's organization in Iraq today. Al-Zarqawi founded this organization in 1999, when he went to Afghanistan. The nucleus of the camp consisted mostly of those from the city of Al-Zarqaa, such as Abd Al-Hadi Daghlas, a Palestinian who was recently killed in Iraq; Khaled Al-Arouri, currently being held in Iran; and Yassin Jarrad, the father of Al-Zarqawi's second wife and the one who, according to the Jihad fighters in Al-Zarqaa, carried out the [September 2003] suicide attack that caused the death of Muhammad Bakr Al-Hakim and the deaths of dozens of Iraqis in the city of Najaf.
Al-Zarqawi's Organization: Made Up of Extremist Palestinian Sheikhs Who Emigrated from Kuwait to Jordan
The inquiry noted that following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf War, 250,000 Palestinians emigrated from Kuwait to Jordan. This phenomenon was called "those who returned from Kuwait." The inquiry stated: "According to calculations by Jordanian experts and researchers, some 160,000 of these displaced persons came only to Al-Zarqaa. The experts noticed a connection between their return and the flourishing of the Salafi Jihad trend in Jordan, particularly in Al-Zarqaa." According to the inquiry, the phenomenon of "the returnees from Kuwait" was perceived by many in Jordan as "a turning point in social change." The Jordan Center for Research at the University of Jordan conducted a survey on the matter and found that beginning in 1993, "the youth [in Jordan] became more conservative than the youth of preceding generations, and a large percentage of them supported polygamy and gave priority to educating boys rather than educating girls."
Among the returnees from Kuwait were "a number of people belonging to the Jihad stream, and at their head Sheikh Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi, [whose real name is] Issam Muhammad Taher Al-Burqawi. [He is] a Palestinian who lived in Kuwait, who later became the spiritual teacher of this stream in Jordan, and in 1989 became Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi's teacher. "[Al-Maqdisi] went from Kuwait to Afghanistan with the Palestinian sheikh Omar Mahmoud Abu Omar, known by the nickname Abu Qatadah. When Al-Maqdisi returned to Kuwait and then to Jordan, Abu Qatadah found refuge in London. [But] these two figures became the main source of authority of the Salafi Jihad ideology in Jordan
Also among the returnees from Kuwait was Abu Anas Al-Shami, the jurisprudence authority of Al-Zarqawi's organization, who was killed several months ago in Baghdad, as well as Abu Qutaybah, senior military official in the Al-Qa'ida organization
These and others, with Abu Mus'ab [Al-Zarqawi] at their head, constituted the nucleus of the Salafi Jihad movement. They met in the mid-1990s at one of the mosques in the Ma'ssoum neighborhood in the city of Al-Zarqaa."
Working Together: Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi and Al-Zarqawi
The inquiry also examined the relationship between Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi, currently behind bars in Jordan, and Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi: "Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi arrived in Jordan as an immigrant from Kuwait in 1991. At that time, he was known only amongst the Salafi Jihad circles, particularly among a few hundred Jordanians who had heard about him or met him in Afghanistan where he had gone [to wage] Jihad. The Afghan Palestinians and Jordanians — among them Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi — constituted the nucleus of the stream that Al-Maqdisi had begun to organize. The Jordanian Jihadis spoke of this period as 'the beginning of the Da'wa [Islamic propagation],' and they described Al-Maqdisi's rounds starting from his home in the Al-Ruseifah camp next to Al-Zarqaa. He would visit their homes in the various Jordanian cities, usually joined by Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi
.According to the inquiry, after Jordan signed the peace agreement with Israel in 1994, "the Salafi Jihad movement was being nourished by a new wellspring
The most prominent of the clandestine organizations established in Jordan was perhaps the Bayat Al-Imam organization, founded by Al-Maqdisi and Al-Zarqawi. Some time after the establishment of [this organization], the Jordanian security apparatuses uncovered weapons and explosives in the possession of Al-Maqdisi and Al-Zarqawi, and both were imprisoned until 1999. During the period of their incarceration, the two managed to organize a not inconsiderable number of activists
In their activity among the prisoners, the two relied on Abu Mus'ab's strong-arm tactics and his familiarity with the world of the criminals amongst whom he had lived in his youth.
The inquiry related that "[a man called] Abu Othman said that Abu Muhammad [Al-Maqdisi]'s personality was kind and good, and non-confrontational, while Abu Mus'ab [Al-Zarqawi] showed strength and toughness in the prison. Abu Othman added that the tribal personality of Abu Mus'ab [Al-Zarqawi] made it possible for him to obtain oaths of allegiance from others within the prison, and that he was confrontational. The youths surrounding him in prison were actual Jihad fighters, and thus they rejected the command of Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi, preferring Abu Mus'ab [Al-Zarqawi] because of his strength and determination. They thought that if [Al-Zarqawi] was [their] imam, Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi would have spare time for engaging in independent judicial ruling [ Ijtihad ] and [religious] study."