Word: zarqawi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Nowhere is the fighting more intense than in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province and for the moment the seething heart of the Sunni-led insurgency. The city remains a stronghold of insurgents loyal to Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who U.S. intelligence believes is hiding in an area north of the city. In recent weeks, the soldiers and Marines in Ramadi have come under regular assault, forcing commanders last week to order reinforcements to the besieged city. In the past year, the Army's 2/28th Brigade Combat Team, the unit the Marines...
Despite heavy losses among the insurgents--112 were killed in one week in April--they have proved resistant to the U.S.'s onslaughts. Intelligence officials increasingly refer to them as a "legitimate local resistance," but it's al-Qaeda that drives them. Long ago, al-Zarqawi's network settled in Ramadi and, in essence, hijacked the homegrown fight. Although Iraqi groups have bucked al-Zarqawi's authority periodically--most notably in last year's referendum and December election, when they opted to vote, forcing him to stand idly by--al-Qaeda maintains its grip...
...Narrow Escape Al-Zarqawi personally decapitates U.S. contractor Nicholas Berg on videotape. In the fall of 2004, a massive U.S.-led operation in jihadi-infested Fallujah fails to nab al-Zarqawi. Some reports suggest he was wounded in the fighting and escaped to Iran...
...Chief Spoiler In 2005, as an elected Iraqi government struggles to maintain stability, al-Zarqawi intensifies his bombing campaign, focusing on Shi?ite targets, with a view to starting a civil...
...Ready for His Close-Up Amid reports of clashes between al-Zarqawi?s fighters and local insurgents, new images of al-Qaeda?s leader appear for the first time in years, in a videotape posted on the Internet last week. In it al-Zarqawi urges all Muslims to defend Islam from Western "crusaders...