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Meet The New Jihad
A TIME investigation reveals how insurgents in Iraq aim to create an Islamic state and turn the country into a terrorist haven
By MICHAEL WARE/FALLUJAH

Sunday, Jun. 27, 2004

The safe house lies on the outskirts of Fallujah in a neighborhood where
no Americans have ventured. Inside, a group of Arab sheiks has gathered to
discuss the jihad they and their followers are waging against the U.S. The
men wear white robes and long beards and greet each other solemnly. They
are all Iraqi, but their beliefs are those of the strict Wahhabi strain of
Islam repressed under Saddam Hussein. Unlike most Iraqi sitting rooms,
this one has no pictures adorning its walls or a television or radio
nestled in a corner. Such luxuries are forbidden, just as they were under
the Taliban in Afghanistan. At the back of the room are a few men from
Saudi Arabia, who stand silently as one of the sheiks, the group's leader,
addresses me in Arabic and stilted English. The war in Iraq, he says, is
one of liberation, not just of a country but of Muslim lands, Muslim
people, Islam itself. There is no room for negotiation with the enemy, no
common ground. What he and his men offer is endless, righteous resistance.
"Maybe this war will take a long time," he says. "Maybe this is a world
war."

After the meeting, they adjourn to the garden and drink sweet black tea in
the twilight. As they lecture me on Islam, a roar cuts across the
conversation. From the other side of the farmhouse, less than 50 yds.
away, a missile soars over us with a thunderous screechâbound for a nearby
encampment housing U.S. Marines. "Allahu akbar," they all mutterâGod is
great. Minutes later, the imam makes the evening call to prayer. The 50
militants gathered at the safe house form tight lines behind one of the
imams and bow reverently in prayer. Then some leave to get ready to try to
kill more Americans.

While the U.S. hopes that the fighting and dying in Iraq will begin to
dissipate after the hand-off of power to an interim Iraqi government this
week, militants like these sheltered outside Fallujah are just as
determined to wreak more carnage. The ruthlessness of the insurgents was
evident across Iraq last week, as guerrillas launched a wave of attacks
that were stunning in their scale and coordination. In a single day,
insurgents attacked in six cities, blowing up police stations, seizing
government buildings, ambushing U.S. forces and killing more than 100
people, including three American soldiers. Though U.S. commanders continue
to say they can contain the insurgency, Iyad Allawi, the incoming Iraqi
Prime Minister, said he may impose martial law once he takes office, a
move that would at least temporarily suspend many of the liberties the
U.S. ostensibly intended to bring to Iraq. "We were expecting such an
escalation, and we will witness more in the next few weeks," Allawi said.
"We will deal with it, and we will crush it."

The insurgents have no intention of laying down their arms. Indeed, the
nature of the insurgency in Iraq is fundamentally changing. Time reported
last fall that the insurgency was being led by members of the former
Baathist regime, who were using guerrilla tactics in an effort to drive
out foreign occupiers and reclaim power. But a Time investigation of the
insurgency todayâbased on meetings with insurgents, tribal leaders,
religious clerics and U.S. intelligence officialsâreveals that the
militants are turning the resistance into an international jihadist
movement. Foreign fighters, once estranged from homegrown guerrilla
groups, are now integrated as cells or complete units with Iraqis. Many of
Saddam's former secret police and Republican Guard officers, who two years
ago were drinking and whoring, no longer dare even smoke cigarettes. They
are fighting for Allah, they say, and true jihadis reject such earthly
indulgences.

Their goal now, say the militants interviewed, is broader than simply
forcing the U.S. to leave. They want to transform Iraq into what
Afghanistan was in the 1980s: a training ground for young jihadists who
will form the next wave of recruits for al-Qaeda and like-minded groups.
Nearly all the new jihadist groups claim to be receiving inspiration, if
not commands, from Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the suspected al-Qaeda operative
who the U.S. believes has masterminded the insurgency's embrace of
terrorism. Al-Zarqawi's group kidnapped three Turkish workers last
Saturday and threatened to behead them within 72 hours unless Turkish
companies withdrew from Iraq. And now the conditions are ripening for the
insurgents to turn their armed struggle into a political movement that
aims to exploit the upheaval and turn parts of Iraq into Taliban-style
fiefdoms. A potential leader is Sheik Mahdi Ahmed al-Sumaidai, a hard-line
Salafi imam recently released from Abu Ghraib prison and now based in
Baghdad's radical Ibn Taimiya Mosque. Mujahedin leaders and U.S. military
and intelligence officers in Iraq say many jihadists are also rallying
behind Harith al-Dhari, who leads the Association of Muslim Scholars,
Iraq's most significant Sunni organization. Al-Dhari, who operates out of
the Mother of all Battles Mosque, is said to have played a key role in
mobilizing fighters during April's uprising in Fallujah; during a
gathering of militants there on April 9, one of his lieutenants called on
Muslims outside Iraq to join the fight. As a result, al-Dhari has built
support among both Iraqi and foreign insurgents, who believe he may emerge
as a figure akin to Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

Insurgents also say al-Zarqawi may have intended last week's onslaught to
be even more catastrophic. As militants attacked in cities like Fallujah
and Baqubah, a cell of an Iraqi resistance group working with al-Zarqawi
roamed Baghdad, insurgent sources told Time. Working in small teams in
separate cars, the insurgents cased targets and waited for their
commanders, including al-Zarqawi himself, to issue strike orders. When the
cell didn't receive the call, it withdrew and waited for another
opportunity to attack.

U.S. intelligence officials say they now believe Iraq is a magnet for
fanatical Muslims around the world. "It's become the proving ground," says
a senior U.S. intelligence official. The jihadists are convinced they can
continue fighting indefinitely. "Jihad is not made by us," says a midlevel
insurgent leader. "It is made by the Prophet and will continue to Judgment
Day." With the U.S. ceding political power to Iraqis this week, here's an
inside look at how the new jihadists operate and the threats they pose to
stability in Iraq.

The Godfather

Before the U.S. invaded iraq last spring, al-Zarqawi was a fringe player
on the global terrorist stage. According to U.S. intelligence officials,
the 37-year-old Jordanian spent months traveling from Afghanistan to Iran
to Georgia, offering his services as a terrorism consultant to Islamist
groups. His firmest prewar connections were with Ansar al-Islam, a
Kurdish-based militant group associated with al-Qaeda. Intelligence
officials suspect that last spring al-Zarqawi fled to Iran and joined the
terrorist group's leadership there before slipping back into Iraq.

Over the past six months, al-Zarqawi's profile in jihadi circles has risen
with the increase in terrorist attacks in Iraq, including suicide
bombings. Through aggressive use of the Internet, al-Zarqawi has promoted
himself and his group, Attawhid wal Jihad, or Unity and Holy War. A senior
U.S. military official says the U.S. believes that al-Zarqawi played a
chief role in the coordination of last week's violence and is gearing up
for more. "This guy knows his [stuff]," says the official.

From what Iraqi members of jihadist groups closely affiliated with
al-Zarqawi's network describe, the Jordanian operates more as a
godfather-style mafioso than a traditional military commander. Insurgent
commanders told Time that al-Zarqawi does not direct day-to-day operations
but guides strategy and is involved in the planning of major operations.
Al-Zarqawi possesses an unmatched ability to persuade and indoctrinate.
"Some of the emirs just have to sit with him and listen," says a senior
Fallujah-based commander, "and they walk away committed to him."

Al-Zarqawi's role at the center of the insurgency was cemented in April,
during the standoff between militants and U.S. Marines in Fallujah.
Foreign fighters from throughout the Middle East, including Syria and
Saudi Arabia, manned the barricades alongside Iraqi fighters during the
Marines' offensive. This kind of on-the-ground cooperation was rare in the
past, according to Iraqi cell leaders, in part because foreigners were
viewed as terrorists interested only in major attacks against civilian
targets. Now foreigners team up with Iraqis to employ more traditional
guerrilla tactics, such as roadside ambushes and mortar attacks against
U.S. forces.

Despite al-Zarqawi's efforts to attract Iraqi insurgent groups into his
network, his inner circle of lieutenants and bodyguards is said to consist
entirely of foreign fighters. No one can pinpoint how many are operating
in Iraq, partly because they remain shadowy even to those who work with
them. "The foreigners trust no one, not even their own clothes," says an
Iraqi resistance fighter. He adds that al-Zarqawi has become an
inspirational figure, like Osama bin Laden, for militants who espouse his
methods and religious fervor. "Most are not members of his group in a
formal sense," says the insurgent. "But everyone, especially the
foreigners in Iraq who share his ideals of jihad, considers himself part
of Attawhid wal Jihad."

The lieutenants

Among those who have thrown their support behind the jihad is insurgent
leader Abu Ali. A ballistic-missile specialist in Saddam's Fedayeen
militia, he fought U.S. troops during the invasion and has served as a
resistance commander ever since, organizing rocket attacks on the green
zone, the headquarters of the U.S. administration in Baghdad. When
interviewed by Time last fall, he spoke of a vain hope that Saddam would
return and re-establish a Baathist regime. But at a recent meeting near a
rural mosque, he said he is fighting to rid all Muslim lands of infidels
and to set up an Islamic state in Iraq. "The jihad in Iraq is more potent
than it was in Afghanistan in the 1980s because the insurgents today have
better weapons and are developing new ones," he says.

The insurgency's shift toward a religious outlook is in part driven by
financial necessity: the capture of Saddam and his henchmen drained the
insurgency of its former sources of funding. That forced Iraqi groups to
turn to foreign financiers in places like the gulf, and they have demanded
that the insurgents adopt a more radical religious identity. "After we
rolled up Saddam, we hit them pretty hard, and this is what they turned
to," says a senior U.S. military official. "It would appear there are not
only some marriages of convenience but also some groups that have crossed
over to the jihadi side." One such group, whose leaders met with Time, is
the Kata'ib al-Jihad al-Islamiyah, or Battalions of Islamic Holy War.
Founded by frontline officers from Saddam's intelligence services and the
Republican Guard who once shunned terrorist attacks that killed innocent
Iraqis, the group represents a significant Iraqi wing of al-Zarqawi's
network. The group's leaders say they now accept mass-casualty attacks as
legitimate; they claim that innocents killed in such strikes go straight
to paradise. A fund-raising video made by the group and given to Time
shows its members citing exhortations by bin Laden and referring to
fundamentalist interpretations of the Koran. Kata'ib has incorporated
foreign fighters into its cells. One member says the group has formed an
entirely foreign unit, dubbed the Green Brigade. The group's commanders
say their fighters joined last week's attacks against U.S. Marines in
Fallujah and helped lead the uprising in Baqubah.

Kata'ib has drawn new members from the ranks of former detainees at Abu
Ghraib. Scores of men like Abu Mustafa, a former military officer, say
they spent their time in jail studying Salafi Islam and receiving lessons
in jihad from bearded Iraqis and detainees who came from places like Syria
and Saudi Arabia. Abu Mustafa claims that cellblocks have secretly become
mini-madrasahs, or religious schools. "We studied hard every day and often
into the night," he says. The U.S. has released hundreds of detainees in
recent weeks, supplying the insurgency with a fresh crop of jihadists.
"There was one man who didn't even know how to pray," says Abu Mustafa.
"When he got out, he was like an imam and is one of our most ferocious
fighters on the front line."

The Future of Jihad

The U.S. does not believe that the insurgency has an organized command
structure; even al-Zarqawi's network seems to be less a military unit than
a decentralized terrorist operation. Iraqi commanders say the shape of the
network shifts constantly, with no formal membership of any one group. The
amorphous nature of the resistance also means it has the potential to
spread more easily into the Sunni heartland, where U.S. forces are still
struggling to maintain order. Fallujah is already a terrorist sanctuary;
insurgent sources say the safe haven is set to expand into Baqubah and
Samarra.

With U.S. forces stretched thin and Iraqi security forces still months
away from being able to assert authority, the fear is that the
al-Zarqawi-led jihadists may carve out their own fiefdoms across the
country from which they can recruit and train zealots to join their
struggleâa version of the northwest province in Pakistan, which al-Qaeda
has turned into a safe haven. The insurgents' aspirations are growing.
Abdullah, a midlevel leader of Kata'ib, says he's happy U.S. troops are
staying in Iraq: it means he can be part of the jihad. Asked what the
jihadists will do if U.S. forces finally pull out, one of Abdullah's
comrades offers this answer: "We will follow them to the U.S."

With reporting by Massimo Calabresi/Washington and Aparisim Ghosh and
Vivienne Walt/Baghdad

From the Jul. 05, 2004 issue of TIME magazine