By Hassan Al-Haifi  
June 12 - June 14 Issue
Yemen - Original Article (English)    

Zarqawi: Time running out for Muslims to show
he's a heretic, and not just one of the crowd ...





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Even more perplexing than the propaganda that fueled the invasion of Iraq or the lies and deceptions that came with it, is the phenomena of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Once no more than an unknown gangster and opportunist, Zarqawi has found in death a lucrative career and has been propelled into international stardom. This despite his distorted way of resisting aggression and his corrupt version of Islam.

For all the sadness that this occupation has brought to Iraq, what Zarqawi created was far uglier. It was more than simply a convenient excuse for the U.S.-led coalition to carry on with the mayhem they have inflicted.

No one suggests that Zarqawi is the exclusive creation of this unholy occupation, in which hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and others have lost their lives. But certainly, the occupation created an avenue for Zarqawi and others like him to seize the limelight and create a catastrophe that defies explanation. And in the process of pursuing his plans, Zarqawi defied not only every accepted rule for resisting foreign occupation, he defied Islam.

Islam doesn't condone Zarqawi's brand of bloodshed, and there is every reason to believe that his corruption of Islamic tenets will consign him to hell. That Zarqawi had to be killed by the very forces that set the stage for his emergence is a sign that the Almighty has His own ways of dealing with heretics.

Reputed Successor:
Abu Ayyub al-Masri,
alias Sheikh Abu Hamza
al-Muhajir

[Abu Ayyub al-Masri]
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One hopes that all Muslims would decry the kind of butchery that Zarqawi advocated. Zarqawi's attempts to foment sectarian strife amongst the Umma [community] is anathema to Islam. In short, Zarqawi is a heretic as anathema to Islam as Ariel Sharon, George Bush and Ehud Olmert combined.

Muslims must come to understand that it is their responsibility to ensure that Zarqawi's kind are deprived of the opportunity to disseminate their doctrine of hatred. Likewise, the world must understand that there will never be a place in the Muslim heart for this kind of resistance, nor for those who equate glory with wanton acts of violence.

Muslims know that Allah is not served by the random spilling of blood. Moreover, it's time for Muslims to realize that the rhetoric espoused by Zarqawi and his mentors (whether bin Laden or Zawahiri) is an unhealthy version of Islam that needs to be refuted, before the world's people are wrongly educated about Islamic principles, and before more begin to share the beliefs of today's misguided Islamic youth - who kill and are killed in the service of Zarqawi's heretical teachings.

Al-Haifi has been a Yemeni political economist and journalist for over 20 years.

VIDEO FROM IRAQ: ZARQAWI'S LAST VIDEO FROM APRIL

Internet Broadcast, Iraq: Video by Al-Qaeda Commander in Iraq Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi. The video culminates in footage of Al-Zarqawi with masked fighters, firing an automatic weapon, and the firing of what the leader of the fighters claims are new missiles developed by "the brothers," April 25, 00:017:36, MEMRI

"You [Bush] should know, oh arrogant liar, that we confront your dreams with our blood and our body parts, and what is still to come is even more terrible and bitter, Allah willing."