Amman, Jordan – Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is on the move, or at least that’s the message he is sending.
With Wednesday’s attacks in his birthplace of Jordan, the chief of al-Qaeda in Iraq showed he can export his suicide-bombing campaign outside Iraq’s borders.
Now, many in the already-volatile Middle East worry that his stated goals of toppling pro-U.S. Arab rulers, erecting an Islamic caliphate and targeting Israel may be gaining momentum.
His threat is not new to the region, but the three fiery hotel blasts that killed 57 people in one of the Mideast’s most secure cities sparked instant calls for regional and international efforts to fight terrorism.
Officials in Iraq, where al-Zarqawi’s bloody campaign is well known, repeated warnings that terrorism will only keep spreading in the Mideast unless countries work harder to help Iraq end its raging insurgency.
Iraqi Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi warned Arab states that “if the Iraqi volcano explodes, no neighboring capital will be saved.”
“I told the world and neighboring countries, ‘Don’t make Iraq a hub for terrorism,”‘ he said in Amman on Sunday.
In Iraq, violence continues despite repeated large-scale operations to try to wipe out terrorist strongholds. The insurgency shows resilience and the capacity to send forces abroad.
“Al-Zarqawi has proved a very fundamental point, that the Americans can’t control al-Qaeda in Iraq,” said Mustafa Alani, an Iraqi senior security analyst with the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. “Iraq is no longer a magnet attracting terrorism, but it is now exporting terrorist forces.”
Al-Zarqawi demonstrated with the Amman attacks that he has at least some Iraqis, and not just foreign fighters, on his side.
The three suicide bombers who died in the Grand Hyatt, Radisson SAS and Days Inn attacks were Iraqis, as was the wife of one of the men, who failed in her attempt to blow herself up and was arrested Sunday.
Some, however, cast doubt on whether al-Zarqawi had the ability to wage a wider war and whether the Amman attacks were a sign of worse to come.
“One event does not mark a trend, and Jordanian security repeatedly blocked prior attack attempts,” said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It is also important to note that it is far from clear that al-Zarqawi has a broad network.”
