Face to Face With Terror

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Such fiery rhetoric, though, masks a gradual but unmistakable effort by al-Zarqawi to recast his image. Based on interviews by TIME with Bakr and others who have associated with al-Zarqawi, a picture emerges of a cold-blooded killer trying to reinvent himself as a quasi-religious leader. He wants to be seen as a deeply spiritual Muslim whose actions are driven by a desire to save Islam from attacks from external and internal enemies, according to those sources. The most striking aspect of that transformation is al-Zarqawi's attempt to mimic the sirah, or lifestyle, of the Prophet. Those who have seen al-Zarqawi in the past year say he constantly uses the written histories of the Prophet's life, known collectively as the Hadith, to copy the way he spoke, sat, walked, ate and slept, even the way he brushed his teeth (the Prophet is recorded as having used the twigs of a particular bush). He has taken to using musk-scented oils and requiring his closest aides to be similarly anointed because Islamic history says the Prophet favored those traditional Arabic perfumes.

What explains such conspicuous expressions of piety? Some Western officials believe that al-Zarqawi may be trying to project a more moderate, appealing image to regain some of the prestige he has lost in recent months. Clashes between al-Qaeda, which mainly comprises foreign fighters, and homegrown Iraqi insurgent groups have been interpreted as an indication that al-Zarqawi is no longer the all-powerful figure leading the anti-U.S. forces in Iraq. He has also attracted criticism for his group's deadly attacks on Iraqi Shi'ites.

But al-Zarqawi hasn't lost his appetite for murder--or his determination to sow civil war in Iraq. Bakr says he recalls conversations in which al-Zarqawi raged at the Shi'ites. "Those were the only times I hear him shout," he says. "He really hates the Shi'ites, even more than the Americans." The terrorist leader may carry his Koran at all times, but his Kalashnikov is never far from his reach, as evidenced by last week's video, in which he is clearly seen wearing an ammunition belt. Bakr and other sources say al-Zarqawi constantly wears a suicide-bomber's belt, taking it off only to bathe, although a U.S. official questioned this. When al-Zarqawi is on the road, his car is said to be rigged to blow up at the throw of a switch. "He will never be taken alive," says Loretta Napoleoni, author of Insurgent Iraq: Al-Zarqawi and the New Generation. "He may be getting more religious, but the mujahid in him wants to go down fighting."