of sectarian paranoia: A rumor spread that the pilgrims had been poisoned. As Robert Worth noted, “Shiite Muslims believe that Imam Kadhim was poisoned by agents of Harun al-Rashid, the Sunni caliph, in the late eighth century, and history often merges with the present among religious pilgrims here” (Worth, “950 Die in Stampede”).
tragically entrenched: And yet even against Zarqawi’s encroaching dark dream for Iraq, a few defiant heroes stood out: A young Sunni man, nineteen years old, heard calls from a local mosque to help people drowning in the nearby Tigris, ran to the river, and ferried out Shia victims until he had exhausted himself, drowning in the water. “Sunni Rescuer Hailed as a Hero,” BBC, September 5, 2005.
released from prison in Jordan: About a year before his release, from within the walls of Qefqefa prison, Maqdisi had posted an open letter to his website addressed to Zarqawi and criticizing his tactics in Iraq, but it went largely unnoticed. Nibras Kazimi, “A Virulent Ideology in Mutation: Zarqawi Upstages Maqdisi,” Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, September 12, 2005.
its most influential ideologue: Joas Wagemakers, an expert on Maqdisi, writes that “Maqdisi is one of the most prominent radical Islamic ideologues in the world today” but notes that the description of him as “‘the spiritual father of the al-Qa’ida movement’ . . . may be an exaggeration.” Joas Wagemakers, “Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi,” CTC Sentinel, May 15, 2008. Maqdisi famously referred to the West Point Combating Terrorism Center’s Militant Ideology Atlas, to argue that he was “the most influential living Islamic thinker . . . among jihadi groups.” Thomas Hegghammer, “Maqdisi Invokes McCants,” Jihadica (blog), April 18, 2009.
made Iraq a “crematory”: This translation is from Steven Brooke, “The Preacher and the Jihadi,” Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, February 16, 2006.
wiped out like another race: Kazimi, “A Virulent Ideology.”
“Six months ago, every day”: Y. Yehoshua, “Dispute in Islamist Circles, Over the Legitimacy of Attacking Muslims, Shi’ites, and Non-combatant Muslims in Jihad Operations in Iraq,” Middle East Media Research Institute, September 11, 2005. This was strong stuff coming from Maqdisi, whose excommunication of the Saudi royal family in the early 1990s had been too radical for bin Laden and whose own website was stocked with anti-Shia literature (Kazimi, “A Virulent Ideology”).
“liquidate” the Sunnis: Zarqawi responded in an audiotape posted online, later in the day after Maqdisi’s Al Jazeera interview aired (Yehoshua, “Dispute in Islamist Circles”). On July 6, the next day, Maqdisi was put back in prison, leaving behind an Internet statement praising Zarqawi as a “beloved brother and hero” and acknowledging that the “mujahadeen brothers in Iraq have their own interpretations and choices that they choose as they see fit in the battlefield that we are distant from” (ibid.).
days later on July 9: “Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi,” Office of the Director of National Intelligence website, October 11, 2005.
fulsome if perfunctory praise: “I want to be the first to congratulate you,” he begins, “for what God has blessed you with in terms of fighting battle in the heart of the Islamic world, which was formerly the field for major battles in Islam’s history, and what is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era” (ibid.).
“the strongest weapon”: Ibid.
“Expel the Americans from Iraq”: Anti-Shiism had been ingrained in the fundamentalism of Al Qaeda, but Al Qaeda had occasionally flirted with cooperating with Shias to strike its far enemies. During the Soviet war, Shiites had fought alongside the Sunni groups and even found quarter in bin Laden’s camp. Zawahiri’s Egyptian al-Jihad had supported the Iranian revolution, and he reportedly took two million dollars of funds from Iran. But by the late 1990s, Al Qaeda was teaching the thousands of men who passed through its training camps in Afghanistan that the “enemies of Islam” were first, apostate Arab leaders; second, Shiites; third, America; and fourth, Israel. Wright, Looming Tower, 340–42.