Most historians of the Islamic State agree that the group emerged out of al-Qaeda in Iraq as a response to the U.S. invasion in 2003. They also agree that it was shaped primarily by a Jordanian jihadist and the eventual head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The Jordanian had a dark vision: He wished to fuel a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites and establish a caliphate. Although he was killed in 2006, his vision was realized in 2014—the year isis overran northern Iraq and eastern Syria.
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What I hope is now clear to readers is that Anbari’s extremist views, which were later mirrored by isis, were forged before the American invasion of Iraq—and before he met Zarqawi.
According to Abdullah’s biography, Zarqawi arrived in northern Iraq from Afghanistan in the spring of 2002. Anbari met him a month later in Baghdad, where Zarqawi was hosted by an envoy of the Kurdish jihadist group Ansar al-Islam and a friend of Anbari’s. (This is the first time an isis publication has acknowledged that Zarqawi was present in Baghdad before the invasion. Previously, some claimed this chronology was false or politicized—part of the Bush administration’s attempts to justify the war by linking Zarqawi to the Hussein regime.) During this period, Anbari moved back and forth from central to northern Iraq to facilitate jihadist activities. “Preparations for jihad were maturing, in terms of finance, men and arms,” Abdullah’s biography reads. “All this was happening under the rule of the Baath.”
(full article online)
The True Origins of ISIS
A secret biography suggests that Abu Ali al-Anbari defined the group’s radical approach more than any other person.www.theatlantic.com
Israel demanded the invasion of Iraq in Clean Break Strategy. The PNAC in 1998 had mostly dual citizens signatories.
