Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East

by Kim Ghattas

By then, Zarqawi had not only beheaded Western hostages and blown up the UN headquarters and the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, he had also sent suicide bombers into four-star hotels in Amman one December night in 2005, killing sixty people and injuring more than a hundred. Zarqawi was so bloodthirsty that even al-Qaeda had kept its distance from him, criticizing his gruesome videotaping of the beheadings and counseling him against the wanton killing of fellow Muslims, including Shias. Even Zarqawi’s mentor Maqdissi had never condoned the killing of Shias. But Zarqawi wanted a civil war in Iraq;