Ninth_Scribe
IB Expert
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I'm surprised this article was actually posted, since it affirms the fact that Al-Qaeda has to create a fictional character to put an Iraqi face to their activities.
You know, I really don't understand why the U.S. pretends to be so opposed to so-called "foreign" Muslim groups since it was America who promoted the concept. Seriously, the U.S. sponsored a huge recruitment (propaganda) campaign to encourage Arab youth to care about what happens to their people in foreign lands... like Afghanistan. We circulated brochures with pictures of burned women and children, etc, because we wanted them to fight the Soviet Union... for us!
Excerpt from Lost Letters:
Zarqawi: No, there wasn't any particular personality that touched me before my adherence. And the real reason that made me religious was that I went through a lot of incidents that brought me close to destruction and therefore close to death. So I felt that Allah was warning me. After that I was guided and I adhered to (the teachings of) Islam.
Baghdadi: The transfer from general religiousness to the depths (zarwah) of Islam i.e. Jihad , how did that happen?
Zarqawi: By the grace of Allah, during my stay with the brothers at the Masjid, I regularly performed congregational prayers and the brothers used to discuss the news of Jihad in Afghanistan. We also used to receive tapes of Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, may Allah have mercy on him, who had a very great influence in directing me towards jihad. Similarly we would get magazines on jihad and a few videos that effected me a lot and made me among those who cared enough to travel to the land of jihad in Afghanistan. I decided to migrate leaving my family, as I had only been married a short while, two months or so, and my age then was 23 years.
Baghdadi: The journey to Afghanistan, how did it take place?
Zarqawi: I got the visa from the Jordan embassy because at that time it was simple on the part of these organizations that obey the command of America so it made it easy for youth to travel to Afghanistan in order to destroy the Soviet Union and stop its raid towards the warm waters as is the Russian dream. And you know. the world then was divided into Capitalist and Socialist and both of them were competing on the lands of influence, nevertheless the Middle East . Most of the Arab countries follow American order, so America didn't bat an eyelash in declaring jihad against the Soviet Union and these countries made it easy to reach Afghanistan. I reached Afghanistan in 1989 and came back to Jordan in 1992.
So, let me see if I understand the complaint. We pursuaded Zarqawi to care about what happens to Muslims in foreign lands like Afghanistan, because it was convenient for us (we wanted him to fight the Soviets), but we redicule him for caring about what happens in foreign lands like Iraq, because it was inconvenient for us. We told people to care and get involved, and now we tell them to mind their own business?
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