July 16, 2014 | Quote
The Most Extreme Faction Of Al Qaeda Is Winning, And It’s Leading To The Destruction Of Iraq
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But these psychopaths weren't aimless — they were capable of channeling their madness towards specific tactical and strategic ends. As Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, explained to Business Insider, Zarqawi was an innovator in his own right with an approach to holy war that was markedly different than that of Osama Bin Laden.
“Zarqawi was a timely figure in terms of sheer brutality,” says Gartenstein-Ross. “He was known for releasing beheading videos, something [current al-Qaeda head Ayman] al-Zawahiri reprimanded him for. He would go after Shi'ites mercilessly.
“Al-Qaeda is also a brutal organization,” he adds. “Let's not whitewash al-Qaeda at all. But Zarqawi took it to another level.”
Crucially, Zarqawi “made this brutality work for him,” as Gartenstein-Ross puts it. His killing sprees would sometimes have a purpose and a utility to them, despite their seeming mindlessness. For instance, in February of 2006, Zarqawi ordered the bombing of the Golden Dome in Samarra, one of the holiest sites in Shi'ism — triggering a round of sectarian killings in which AQI positioned itself as the sole defender of Iraq's Sunnis.
“That was an innovation,” says Gartenstein-Ross. “He was able to use his brutality to set in motion chaos that worked for him, in ways that the organization had never done before.”
And there was a sharply sectarian worldview underlying all of this. “Al-Qaeda is sectarian but in a little more of a controlled way,” says Gartenstein-Ross. “Zarqawi at times would declare Shias to be the number-one enemy.”
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