Zarqawi began memorizing the Koran, spending hour after hour reading, or staring blankly with the open volume in his lap. His diffuse rage took on a focus: a fierce, single-minded hatred for perceived enemies of Allah. The list started with Jordan’s monarch, King Hussein, whom Zarqawi saw as the illegitimate leader of an artificial country, responsible for the unspeakable crime of making peace with Israel. It also included servants of the regime: the guards, the soldiers, the politicians, the bureaucrats, and countless others who profited from the current system. Even prison inmates he
...more
