Face to Face With Terror

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In the meantime, al-Zarqawi has also been working to expand his influence beyond Iraq, and his new mantle of religiosity will be especially useful in parts of the Islamic world where military skills are less important than the ability to inspire devotion among hard-line Muslims, as bin Laden has. "For somebody who wants to position himself as a leader in the Muslim community, it can be a very effective tactic," says Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a prominent U.S.-based Muslim preacher and scholar.

Will it work for al-Zarqawi? Imam Abdul Rauf believes that most Muslims will see through the pretense and "recognize the wolf in the sheep's clothing." Many, he says, will be outraged by al-Zarqawi's attempt to use the lifestyle of the Prophet in order to cover or justify his terrorist agenda. But, Imam Abdul Rauf says, "there will always be some people who will buy into it."

In Iraq there are signs that the spiritual turn is bolstering al-Zarqawi's stature. In separate interviews with two top military commanders of Iraq's largest nationalist insurgent groups, it was clear that al-Zarqawi's religiosity is making a deep impression. Both men have met the al-Qaeda leader; they say that he has always been very religious but that in recent months his faith has become more pronounced. Both commanders say their regard for al-Zarqawi has grown as a result of his transformation. "In the beginning, we thought of him as a hard man, a great fighter," says one of the commanders. "But more recently, we're seeing a different side, a spiritual side." The other commander says meetings with al-Zarqawi, once brief encounters involving exchanges of intelligence and discussions about military tactics, are now dominated by spiritual matters. "He wants you to pray with him and to discuss religion," says the second commander.

But, the commanders say, al-Zarqawi's religiosity has not made him any less effective as a jihadi leader. If anything, it has made him more passionate about his cause and determined to kill for it. And he retains a full range of deadly skills. The commanders especially cite his expertise with explosives and an apparently photographic memory that enables him not only to recite the Koran but also to recall minutiae of military plans and remember obscure paths and hideouts in the giant Iraqi desert west of Baghdad. The U.S. counterterrorism official warns that al-Zarqawi's transformation may make him more dangerous than ever. "He has become more politically savvy, but he hasn't changed his stripes," says the official. "He still considers violence to be a religious duty." It is a duty he performs all too well.