Zarqawi�s Death and Iraqi Insurgency Taj Hashmi

Zarqawi�s Death and Iraqi Insurgency

Taj Hashmi

Simon Fraser University, Canada

Published on June 09, 2006

The least expected death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by US bombing fifty kilometer northeast of Baghdad has stirred up global politics as well as economy. While Bush, Blair and Rumsfeld, among others, sounded quite euphoric and optimistic about winning their controversial �war on terror� being fought in Iraq at the death of this cruel and barbaric terrorist from Jordan, the soaring oil prices fell by more than a dollar a barrel following the end of Zarqawi.

However, underneath Bush�s euphoric statement that Zarqawi�s death is a �severe blow� to al-Qaeda and that �It�s a victory in the global war on terror� lies the reality, which even Bush could not hide. He had to admit: �Zarqawi is dead, but the difficult and necessary mission in Iraq continues�. The only undeniable fact is what Bush said in the Rose Garden: "Now Zarqawi has met his end, and this violent man will never murder again".

Pragmatism demands that instead of reading too much into the U.S. air strike that killed this terrorist, we pay heed to the following signed statement, an ominously disturbing one, by Abu Abdel-Rahman al-Iraqi, proclaimed as the deputy leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq: �The death of our leaders is life for us. It will only increase our persistence in continuing holy war so that the word of God will be supreme."

Since it is an established fact now, that there was absolutely no justification in drawing a synonymy between Saddam Hussein�s dictatorship (and his alleged accumulation of Weapons of Mass Destruction) and al-Qaeda terrorism; death of a prominent al-Qaeda leader in Iraq does not change much in the nature of the ongoing insurgency and civil war in this occupied country. As al-Qaeda has never been the main, let alone the only insurgent group in Iraq, not even the total decimation of this terrorist organization would de-escalate the insurgency in the country. �If anything�, as one analyst has surmised, �his [Zarqawi�s] demise will most probably lessen the antipathy many Iraqi Shia Muslims feel toward the Sunni-dominated insurgency�. And this might signal a joint Shia-Sunni insurgency, further jeopardizing the US-led coalition�s untenable foothold.

Even if one cannot authenticate if al-Qaeda�s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri rebuked Zarqawi for indiscriminate killing of Shiites and circulating his hostage-beheading videos, purported to have diminished popular support for al-Qaeda, his death might bring more adherents to the terrorist organization in Iraq. As Iraqis constitute more than ninety per cent of al-Qaeda activists in the country, there is no point celebrating the death of this Jordanian terrorist leader assuming that this would lead to the disintegration of al-Qaeda network of �foreigners� in the country.

There are two dimensions of the fall-out of Zarqawi�s death: one in regard to al-Qaeda, and another, to the Iraqi insurgency. Let us look at the possible scenarios taking place vis-�-vis the terrorist network within and beyond Iraq and the ongoing insurgency, which is not necessarily linked with al-Qaeda terror.

Those who do not consider organized terrorism as mere by-products of groups of people�s psychological disorder, classifying terrorists, including suicide bombers, only as irrational fanatics devoid of any logic, know that terrorism is very much a logical behaviour of groups and communities inspired by secular, religious or some millennial ideologies. Terrorists thrive, to paraphrase Robert Pape [Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism], with �significant public support�. And we know that despite having a veneer of religion, terrorism in the name of religion is also aimed at attaining some secular socio-political and economic goals beneath the surface.

So, terrorism is not an end in itself. Hence, sudden deaths of leaders, including the founders, of an organized terrorist network like al-Qaeda not necessarily signal the death of the terror network. If we look back to the medieval terrorist cult of the Ismaili Shiites organized by Hasan bin Sabah (d.1124), popularly known as the Assassins, we see his terrorist network outliving him by another 140-odd years in the 1270s. And in view of the catastrophic and unimaginable terrorist acts perpetrated by al-Qaeda before and after the Nine-Eleven, there is no reason to underestimate its strength and capabilities. Most importantly, terrorist organizations do not need millions of activists. Fifty terrorists can wreck havoc affecting the lives of millions.

Since there is nothing local or �homegrown� about al-Qaeda terror, we cannot underestimate its global character, its network transcending national boundaries. Since theoretically the Muslims belong to a global Ummah (community), emerging out of the tiny orthodox Wahhabi sect, al-Qaeda exploits the Islamic concept of Muslim brotherhood albeit by running a cult of terror network in the name of liberating �occupied Muslim territories�. As Islamic history is replete with transnational movements with Muslim adherents joining distant wars in support of fellow Muslims � Indian Muslims fighting for the Ottoman caliphs and Bengali Muslims joining �Wahhabi� warriors in the northwest of the Indian Subcontinent in the 19th and 20th centuries � there is nothing surprising about the global network of al-Qaeda stretched out from the Middle East to Pakistan and Indonesia to Canada. Thus al-Qaeda network in Iraq is just another outpost of this global cult of �martyrs� and �warriors of God�.

Now, to turn to the implications of Zarqawi�s sudden death on the Iraqi insurgency, we must not lose sight of the artificial entity called Iraq, created by the Anglo-French imperialists in the heartland of Arabia in and around 1919. The consequence of drawing arbitrary lines across the desert by Britain and France without consulting the indigenous people has been the perpetual conflict between the Shiite majority (poorer and subjugated) and the dominant and rich Sunni minority in Iraq.

Overpowering dictatorial regimes since 1919, including that of Saddam Hussein, somehow maintained the semblance of peace and order, although by favouring the Sunni minority Arabs to the detriment of Shiite Arabs in the south and Sunni Kurds in the north. The overthrow of the Saddam regime, on the one hand has emboldened the Shiite majority, who are looking forward to their legitimate rights, redress of their grievances and justice for their persecution by Saddam Hussein. The Sunni minority, on the other hand, after their sudden loss of state patronage and dominant role with the overthrow of Saddam regime have been frantically trying to reverse the process. The American decision to disband over a million Iraqi troops in the wake of the American occupation of the country in 2003 has further worsened the situation. The so-called Sunni insurgency is mainly a by-product of this unwise decision to disband the Iraqi army.

It is too simplistic to assume that al-Qaeda has been the only driving force behind Iraqi insurgency and that al-Qaeda without Zarqawi (or without Bin Laden in the global context) will simply cease to function as an effective deterrent to the Coalition and its local allies. There are all the elements of class and ethnic conflicts, sectarian and communal violence and competition are present in the ongoing insurgency in Iraq. Militant Shiite clergy and the obscurantist al-Qaeda cult members are using religious symbols to settle old socio-political and economic scores. The conflicts are also parts of local, regional and national politics. Consequently Zarqawi�s role should be visualized in the true perspective of ongoing national wars of liberation of at least three visible nations of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

In sum, containing the activities of a minor cult leader like Soko Asahara of the Aum Shinrikyo, a terrorist Buddhist cult of Japan, cannot be compared with the death and detention of scores of al-Qaeda leaders and activists. Al-Qaeda is not another Aum Shinrikyo and Zarqawi or Bin Laden not another Soko Asahara.