Dramaturgie im zeitgenössischen Tanz ist ? positiv gemeint ? ein heißes Eisen. Idealerweise sind Dramaturginnen und Dramaturgen während der Erarbeitung eines Stücks die besten Freunde der Choreografen. more
"The answer is no." No one knows where this stuff comes from.
Transfixed, Evan Kohlmann stares at the tiny screen of his mobile
phone. It is showing a film. A man lying in the grass, on his head a
shoe. A knife comes into the frame. Gurgling. For 20 seconds. Kohlmann
knows the film. It shows the decapitation of a CIA agent in Iraq,
recorded in the middle of last year. "With this kind of video messages
sent directly to people's mobile phones, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has broken
through the final frontier in the propaganda war," he says. "They allow
him to reach anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world."
Evan Kohlmann, 26, sits in an apartment full of computers in the middle
of Manhattan, "on the frontline", as he says. His battlefield is the
World Wide Web. He visits dozens of sites, round the clock, seven days
a week. Now and again a little sleep.
Kohlmann is a kind of private detective, scouring the Internet for
traces of bin Laden, Zarqawi and Co. His official title is simply
"terror expert". He has his own information bureau, Globalterroralert,
with two other staff. "Independent," he emphasizes. "Sometimes I get a
call from the CIA or the Pentagon asking for my opinion." Among his
colleagues, he is known as a whiz kid. At 16 he learned Arabic, at 18
he studied Osama bin Laden's network, and at 23 he wrote the book
"Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe" – praised as "a standard work" by Richard
Clarke, America's former anti-terror czar.
"Here it is," Kohlmann turns up the volume. "All religion will be for
Allah" is the name of the film, a 46-minute piece of war propaganda,
professionally produced, backed with complex graphics and warlike
singing. Kohlmann fast forwards the tape. "Here, that's them." A group
of young men. Sitting in a room, relaxed, making jokes and laughing.
They are the only fighters in the video without masks: "They are
suicide bombers during training," says Kohlmann. They laugh although
they know they are going to their deaths. "They love death the same way
their opponents love life. That's the secret of Zarqawi's strength."
He has hundreds of volunteers in his ranks. And their numbers are
growing every day. "The reason is right here," says Kohlmann, tapping
the screen, "on the web".
Al-Qaida is the first terrorist organization to spread the struggle
from the ground into cyberspace. And Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is leading
the way. The soldiers he sends into the digital battlefield are young,
not much over 20. Whereas in the 1980s their fathers travelled to fight
the holy war in Afghanistan, they sit comfortably in Internet cafés.
Instead of Kalashnikovs, they carry laptops, handycams and DVDs.
Few attacks of any scale in Iraq are not recorded on film. Soon after,
the "reportage" is already available online. The fighter hurries with
the film to a computer and uploads it to one of the dozens of jihad
websites. "For a 15-second clip, the whole upload process takes half an
hour," says Kohlmann, "no more than that."
Kohlmann compares the Zarqawi clips with U.S. Army promotional films
used by recruiting officers on their tours of American high schools. In
both cases, war is sold as an adventure and a service to society. The
Americans use aircraft carriers sailing into the sunset, daring
commando operations and proud officers in stiff uniforms and polished
boots. Zarqawi uses martyrs blowing themselves sky high, to a
soundtrack of warlike chanting and verses from the Koran recited in a
deep vibrato. Some of the propaganda material is produced in Saudi
Arabia. But the producers and webmasters are not limited by
geographical borders. They could be anywhere, in the Middle East, in
Europe, Asia. "But the grotesque thing," says Kohlmann, "is that the
servers for these terror websites are here in America, in North
Carolina for example."
Kohlmann is sure that Western society is a long way from comprehending
this new phenomenon. In his view, there are three huge obstacles to be
overcome. Firstly, the propaganda material is all in Arabic, "a
language that almost no one here speaks." Secondly, the West has hardly
any understanding of the mentality and culture of the Islamists.
Thirdly, "and this is a real tragedy," there are few experts who are
familiar with the techniques of cyber-war. "Of course, there's no
shortage of clever young technology freaks, but in the U.S. government,
of all places, such people are absent."
As so often in his career to date, Zarqawi learned fast. Within a few
months he made the transition from unknown guerrilla fighter to agile
online holy warrior. It all started on April 11, 2004. This was the day
when a video clip bearing Zarqawi's hallmark was seen on the Internet
for the first time. The document is entitled "The Heroes of Fallujah"
and it shows several men in black masks placing bombs at the side of a
road. Soon after, an American jeep drives over the bomb and explodes.
On April 25, this was followed by the first online communiqué in which
Zarqawi claimed responsibility for an attack in the southern Iraqi
city of Basra. "We have decided to hoist the banner of Jihad," it
states. "Fight them [the crusaders], by Allah, we will torture them
before your very eyes."
Then, on May 11, came the film that took the world's breath away: the
beheading of the American Nicholas Berg. The response to Zarqawi's
Internet appearances is overwhelming. Overnight, his documents are
copied and spread via hundreds of websites. After the second filmed
decapitation – the victim was another American, the engineer Eugene
Armstrong – Al-Qaida headquarters dubbed Zarqawi the "Prince of
Butchers" in its online magazine in Saudi Arabia.
Zarqawi's Internet presence fulfils one primary purpose: communication.
On his websites, one of the world's most wanted men, who has never
given an interview to a journalist in his life, stands alone in the
spotlight. He alone sets the tone. By comparison, the democracies of Western Europe had it easy in their
fight against earlier terrorist groups. They disarmed them by
sabotaging their messages. In British news broadcasts, the voice of the
IRA politician Gerry Adams was always removed from footage to prevent
him from spreading his ideology. In Italy, the Red Brigades were put
out of action for whole periods when their statements were withheld from
the public.
Zarqawi, on the other hand, has his own stage that he can design as he
pleases and on which he presents performances any way and with anyone he
likes. Hostages, the President of the United States, Europe's heads of
state and 155,000 international troops in Iraq – Zarqawi relegates them
all to the status of bit-part actors
in a carefully staged drama. His
audience – the public of the Western world plus 1.3 billion
Muslims – is either shocked or filled with enthusiasm, as he wishes.
Zarqawi plays his role very cleverly. He mimes the avenger of the
oppressed who takes on the omnipotent Americans and protects the
Muslims. "As for you, Bush, you Roman dog, you'd better be ready for
something that's going to hurt you bad. Get ready for hard times," he warned
Washington before he severed Nicholas Berg's head. And he presented the
execution of Ken Bigley, an ageing British engineer, as a heroic
response to the alleged arrest and abuse of Muslim women by non-Muslim
men in Iraq and elsewhere in the world. A butcher posing as Zorro.
And his followers cannot get enough. In the online forums, visitors
demand more and more bloody video clips. "You cut that one too fast,"
they write. And: "Sheik Abu Musab, when is the next one coming?"
"We are being overrun by this development," says Kohlmann. "There is
little we can do. Block a website? The next day, two new ones appear,
at a new address." Among Zarqawi's people, there are those who take
care of the websites. When one of their sites is blocked, they send a
message with an alternative where one can find the same content,
accessed using the same username and the same password. And if there is
a problem with downloading a video film, one asks a specialist calling
himself "Terrorist 007". He provides a link to another website. Nothing
is known about the identity of "Terrorist 007" – apart from the fact
that he speaks perfect English. And that he wanders through the web as
if it were his garden. He once hacked into a file directory on the
website of the State of Arkansas, which he then promptly misused for
his own purposes, depositing a series of decapitation videos – freely
accessible and ready for downloading.
The Internet is not a one-way street. Forums featuring discussions on
ideology, strategy and the latest attacks are heavily frequented. In
chatrooms, entire groups communicate with one another. The most popular
is Paltalk,
a free service linking dozens of chatrooms around the
entire world. Here, old Afghanistan veterans compare their experiences
at the front with recent events in Iraq. Relatives of Arab volunteers
in Iraq report on the "martyrdoms" of their sons and nephews. And
British Islamists praise the "cleverness" of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It
is not the first time that Zarqawi has made his mark in Europe.
December 28, 2001: In Shadi Abdullah's apartment, the telephone rings.
"May Allah protect you," says a voice. "Any news?" Abdullah squeals
with joy when he hears the voice.
"As Allah wishes, we have purchased a bride from Morocco. She's a very good bride, I've seen her myself."
"But you're not allowed to see her yet," jokes the voice.
"What do you mean?" Abdullah is confused.
"It's not permitted for you to see her! What did you do that for – looking at my wife?"
Shadi Abdullah is a Jordanian, a former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden
and an asylum seeker in Germany. The voice on the telephone that sends
Abdullah into such rapture belongs to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The Taliban
regime has fallen. Zarqawi is on the run somewhere in Iran. He calls
Germany almost every day. He talks in code. The "bride" that has been
procured in Morocco is a passport. Zarqawi needs many more "brides" for
his fighters. The Islamists in Germany deliver, ordering 300 "brides"
in the space of three months from a counterfeiting workshop in the
Danish town of Horsholm.
But this is clearly about more than just travel assistance for the
nomads of terror. In his telephone calls, Zarqawi speaks of "black
pills," "Russian apples," "honey" and "little girls." The Federal
Criminal Investigation Bureau (BKA) is nervous. For months, it has
been recording conversations between Zarqawi and his associates in
Germany. They belong to the so-called Tawhid group. The codes have not
been cracked. When Abdullah sets off for Berlin after a call, the
tension mounts. By tracking the cell ID of Abdullah's mobile phone, the
BKA pinpoints his location: Fasanenstrasse. The address of the Jewish
community centre. Maximum alert.
Over the following weeks, Zarqawi turns up periodically in North Iraq,
but he maintains contact with his German cell. On April 2, 2002, he
calls Abdullah again. "As Allah wishes, everything
is fine," he says. But the caller soon notices that something is wrong.
"It's not going as some would like," says Abdullah. "We order things, fruit or the same,
but they demand high prices or keep me waiting."
"Listen, listen," Zarqawi barks at him, "it's not for you to worry whether or not something is expensive."
"We have achieved a few things, but not the silent one. We don't have
that yet, we need the silent one, you understand. They brought me one.
But it's causing problems, I need the other one."
"Why don't you stick to the plan and take the black pill?" Zarqawi asks.
"We thought of that, but the medicine that is used with it, I mean the honey, we don't have it."
"It's very simple, very simple, very simple." Zarqawi loses his
patience. "Listen, listen, you need to pull yourselves together,
honestly. In these times, by Allah."
"We are trying hard, by Allah, we are trying hard," Abdullah assures him.
Finally, Zarqawi asks if Abdullah wants to go it alone. "As Allah wishes, now I understand."
"This is a big opportunity," says Zarqawi, "a big opportunity."
Confusion and concern at the BKA. The vehemence of Zarqawi's demands
for the imminent execution of some action is unnerving. On the basis of
tapped telephone calls, the officers believe there is an attack planned
for April 23, 2002. On this day, seven individuals are arrested in a
nationwide operation, first and foremost Shadi Abdullah.
Abdullah talks. Bin Laden's former bodyguard is the kind of source
investigators dream of. He becomes a key witness. The interrogations
point to the conclusion that the German Tawhid cell, originally
intended for logistic support, has gradually transformed itself into an
operative terrorist group. Abdullah's statements give the investigators
an idea of Zarqawi's network in Europe. In Germany, it stretches from
Wiesbaden to Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. Help is also available in
Britain and the Czech Republic in the form of terrorists who are ready
to act. The German group smuggles money to Afghanistan via trading
companies and NGOs, which then finds its way to Zarqawi in Iran.
The threads of the network stretch over the whole of Europe. Cells with
links to Zarqawi have been smashed in Italy, Spain, France and Great
Britain. In London, a key figure was arrested – Abu Katada, the
spiritual leader of al-Tawhid, often referred to by investigators as
"bin Laden's governor in Europe".
Long before he made headlines in Iraq, Zarqawi was being watched by
European agencies. But he was puzzling, "a dark horse" as one
investigator puts it. There were rumours that Zarqawi experimented with
chemical weapons at his Herat training camp. Within the European
intelligence community, there were fears that Zarqawi could succeed in
pulling off the big bang, an attack with chemical weapons. In January
2003, dozens of North Africans were arrested in Spain, France and
Britain. They were supposed to have prepared ricin and other chemical
weapons.
The then U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was categorical: "The
ricin discovered in Europe comes from Iraq," he claimed during his
notorious appearance before the U.N. Security Council on February
5, 2003, during which he set the scene for the invasion of Iraq. "When our
coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish
another poison and explosive training centre. And this camp is
located in north-eastern Iraq." As "proof" of this claim, Powell showed
aerial photographs of the alleged laboratory.
After Powell's U.N. presentation, Zarqawi was known worldwide.
According to the U.S. Secretary of State, he was the link between
Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Many within the European
intelligence community who had long been on Zarqawi's trail were
sceptical. "No such connections have been observed," noted one BKA
official in his file. But this was not yet the official line. Suddenly,
the world saw Zarqawi as the master terrorist. Wherever a terrorist
cell was uncovered, his name turned up, even if the alleged links
remained a mystery. When commuter trains were blown up in Madrid on
March 11, 2004, the examining magistrate advanced the theory that Zarqawi
was the behind the attacks. There was no proof, and the leads were
flimsy.
Fact and fiction got mixed up, with Zarqawi growing into a mythical
figure. He is sighted in the Pankisi Valley in Georgia, then in Europe,
in Syria, Iran and Jordan. He is supposed to have been active in Iraq
under the protection of Saddam Hussein, although no one is really sure
of his mission. According to Colin Powell, Zarqawi even lost a leg and
received treatment at a clinic of Saddam Hussein's in Baghdad. The
world racked its brains. How many legs does he have then? "No more than
three," joked one journalist, "and no less than none – perhaps." Anyone
without access to secret service files soon loses sight of
the big picture. And, as one investigator complains, even the attempts
by the European intelligence community to track down Zarqawi's network
and his plans for chemical attacks seem like "poking around in the fog."
One thing is certain – without the invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi would
never have become one of the world's most wanted terrorists. This was
made possible by Colin Powell when he painted the Jordanian as the
brightest star in the terrorist firmament. And the war and the American
mismanagement in the liberated Iraq gave Zarqawi the stage on which he
now struts.
In Europe today, people are rubbing their eyes. Two years after the
invasion in Iraq, the poison scare has proved to be a false alarm. In
Spain, all the suspects have now been released. The alleged toxic
substances were bleaches and detergents. In France, the case was
dropped when the ricin samples turned out to be wheat germ. And in
London, the court handling the case established that the suspect
substances had been manipulated. The government apologized and blamed
the slip-up on an error made by an employee.
Yet Zarqawi is still far from harmless, and the Iraq war has fanned the flames of this danger. In summer 2003, Jordanian and
Western secret services watched as Zarqawi's followers travelled –
mostly from and through Europe – via Teheran to Iraq to fight
in the holy war there. This was not a one-way street, as it turned out,
with fighters from Iraq also withdrawing to Europe.
"The insurgency in Iraq is creating a new type of Islamist militant,"
concludes a confidential CIA report leaked to the public last
June. Their capabilities are said to be more dangerous than those of
the Afghanistan veterans of the 1980s. "Those Jihadists who survive
will leave Iraq experienced and focussed on acts of urban terrorism,"
said CIA director Porter Goss. "The danger will grow as soon as these
fighters leave Iraq and return either to their Arab home countries or
to Europe, where many of them were living in exile or where they grew
up as the children of refugees."
Once again, Zarqawi is making European security services nervous.
Painstakingly, they are trying to find out how many Muslims were
infected by the propaganda, which of them fell in Iraq, and who is on
their way back to Europe. In France, around 20 individuals are known to
be in Iraq, half of whom have probably died in combat. Europe-wide,
around 200 young Muslims have supposedly set off for Iraq. According to
the latest information from terror experts, Zarqawi has set up a
recruiting network in Great Britain. The new group – Ansar al-Fath
(Partisans of Victory) – is said to offer foreign volunteers logistical
support, as well as recruiting new members over the Internet. Seventy
men from Britain have allegedly set off to fight in the Holy War over
the past two years, some of them returning "fully trained." This is not
a huge number. But it would suffice if one of them were to establish a
local cell and use the skills learnt in Iraq on European soil.
And what about Zarqawi's own plans? Will he carry his terror beyond
Iraq's borders, to Jordan, Syria, Israel? He rarely gives anything
away. His plans must be deduced from his actions. On February 29, 2004,
his mother Umm Sayel died. "Be patient, dear mother," he wrote to her
from prison years before. "If we don't see each other again in this
world, then in heaven."
Weeks passed after her funeral. A dark figure walked through the
alleyways. To a madrassa. Stayed one night. Two. Three. But Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi did not go to the cemetery. He did not visit his wife and
children in Zarqa. He was alone. Home again, in his own town. Then he
returned to the front. One month later, his family disappeared. To
Iraq, or so it is said.
In a letter to bin Laden he has written: "If the Jihad fails in Iraq,
the Caliphate will never be established. Then the Nation will be
strangled, our people degraded, and sanctions will be imposed for all
time."
Everything suggests that he is seeking a decisive moment in Iraq.
According to his numerous statements, he will try his utmost to force
the Shiites into a civil war. And he would do his utmost to sabotage
any Shiite-dominated state. But even if he were to achieve his aim and
plunge Iraq into chaos, he is unlikely to achieve his long-term goal,
the establishment of a Caliphate. This is something invented by Sunnis
for Sunnis. In Iraq, where Shiites make up 60 percent of the
population, there is not even a sufficient potential demographic mass
to support Zarqawi's objective. This means there is little left over
to support his dream. An emirate in sections of the Sunni belt, perhaps, but
no more than that.
Zarqawi's key objective has already been achieved: the Zarqawi effect.
This effect is seen in the armed struggle and in religious terms. Many
radical Islamists orient themselves toward his actions in Iraq. For
fighters, he is a model leader. Decapitations in Afghanistan and
Thailand can be clearly traced back to this "model". For radical
religious leaders, he is the one who carries forward the spirit of
Jihad previously embodied by bin Laden.
Zarqawi is the opposite of bin Laden. Not from a privileged
background. Uneducated. Crude. Impulsive. In spite of this, it may not
be long before he outstrips the Saudi Prince of Terror. With violence,
but also with his sharp instinct for propaganda.
Will he be bin Laden's successor? At present, the two appear to
complement each other. Bin Laden is the spiritual leader and provides
the global strategy, Zarqawi is the general at the front. But the
uncompromising Zarqawi could risk a power struggle. The Jordanian knows
that history is on his side. The dynamic of revolution always favours
the most radical fractions – the Jacobins over the Girondists; the
Bolsheviks over the Mensheviks. In this light, Zarqawi could be the man
of the future.
End
This article about the rise of Iraq's most-wanted terrorist Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi was published in a three-part series. Click here for Part one and here for Part two.
*
Part three of the article originally appeared in German in Die Weltwoche on October 20, 2005.
Translation: Nicholas Grindell