The Islamic militant suspected of involvement in deadly bombings in Iraq and now Spain has been called an al-Qaeda associate, a collaborator of Osama bin Laden who shares his ideology but operates outside his control.
Although his name is not yet widely recognized, intelligence officials say Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is at the forefront of a new, complicated and deadly trend of like-minded terror groups that have become more diffuse. Lines between organizations are blurring, with old groups disbanding and re-emerging under new names, harder to define and predict.
Morocco and other governments suspect al-Zarqawi and his little-penetrated "Zarqawi network" may have been a guiding force, if not the mastermind, for this month's railway bombings in Madrid.
US officials also suspect him in numerous attacks in Iraq, including this month's bombings of a Baghdad hotel and past bombings of Shiite religious ceremonies. He's also blamed for orchestrating the 2002 assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan.
In an annual threat report before Congress this month, CIA Director George Tenet warned that al-Qaeda has infected other organizations.
"Even as al-Qaeda has been weakened, other extremist groups within the movement and influence have become the next wave of the terrorist threat. Dozens of such groups exist," Tenet said, naming the al-Zarqawi network as an example.
In Iraq, the threat to US and coalition interests is thought to originate from former government elements, foreign Islamic fundamentalists and terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and al-Zarqawi's network, American officials have said.
But Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism analyst with the independent Rand Corp. think tank, said he doesn't believe categories of insurgencies still exist. "You'll see secular and religious extremists come together for operations or to share weapons or resources," Hoffman said, and then split apart again.
That means bin Laden's vision for jihad appears to be working: "Al-Qaeda means `the base.' It was set up to be a foundation," Hoffman said.
Al-Zarqawi is believed to be both part of that base and an expansion of it.
While he's received new attention -- and a US$10 million bounty on his head -- with recent high-profile attacks, the Palestinian-born Jordanian has fought alongside Muslims through years of conflict, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. He's believed to have worked with terror groups ranging from Egyptian Islamic Jihad to al Tawhid, and is known as an expert in poisons.
Al-Zarqawi is widely believed to have spent time in Afghanistan, where he was wounded in the US military campaign. Officials say he eventually sought medical treatment -- he may have an artificial leg -- in Baghdad in May 2002. While there, Secretary of State Colin Powell has said, al-Zarqawi established a base of operations with nearly two dozen members, including al-Qaeda members.
He is also thought to have been close with another group, Ansar al-Islam, created in 2001 to establish a strict Taliban-like Islamic society in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. The State Department has said that group receives support from al-Qaeda.
Elements still may be active in Iraq. Mohammad Sabir Ismail, the US representative for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a political faction opposing Ansar, said recently that Ansar's 700 or so members were either killed or fled over the border to Iran during the US invasion of Iraq. Ismail said some of those who survived have since found their way to Iraq's volatile Sunni Triangle -- to work with al-Zarqawi.
But just what al-Zarqawi and his associates are behind may be difficult to pin down: His network doesn't take credit for attacks, nor does it organize itself into corporate-looking diagrams of hierarchy, as al-Qaeda did.
"I'm not sure the Zarqawi network knows there is a Zarqawi network," said Congressman Porter Goss of Florida, a former CIA officer.
It appears that al-Zarqawi and his associates operate independently from al-Qaeda, but they are believed to accept support from bin Laden.
"Al-Qaeda has become more of an ideology, and it is not so much of an organization," Hoffman said. "It would be very difficult to join al-Qaeda now. ... You are not going to go to Afghanistan to hide with bin Laden on the border."
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