Jordanians turn against al-Qa'eda leader over bombings
By Tim Butcher in Zarqa
(Filed: 12/11/2005)
Sympathy for al-Qa'eda's leader in Iraq turned to hatred in his home town yesterday as clan members and ex-neighbours dismissed the justification for the Amman bombings.
The terrorist who chose his nom de guerre, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to honour his birthplace, used to enjoy wide support on these tatty, rundown streets because of his rabid anti-Israeli rhetoric.
Angry Jordanians demonstrate to condemn the Amman bombings
Angry Jordanians demonstrate to condemn the Amman bombings
The backing continued when he took up the fight against American troops in Iraq and did not waiver when his followers began beheading kidnapped aid workers and contractors.
But Wednesday's hotel attacks that killed 57 innocent people, mostly Jordanian civilians and all Muslims, appeared to have quickly transformed him from hero to villain.
"I feel ashamed of what he did in the name of Islam," said Moussa Rashid Khalayleh, a senior member of Zarqawi's Khalayleh clan.
"I am not ashamed of what his group is doing fighting the US occupation of Iraq, but killing civilians, killing Muslims here in Jordan is shaming."
Middle East factfile
Zarqawi's group has taken the unprecedented step of issuing a second statement of responsibility for the Amman bombings.
In the statement, the group made clear that the suicide bombings were carried out by four Iraqis, a husband and wife team and two men working alone. Some security experts suggested that the group had been stung by criticism of the civilian deaths.
In Zarqa, Munder Moomeni, a 38-year-old former soldier who lives next to Zarqawi's house, 13 Ramzi Street, described his former neighbour as "a bastard".
"By killing Jordanians here in Jordan, civilian Jordanians going to a wedding, they did something that not even a Jew would do," he said.
Similar condemnation came from the next room where his wife, Umm Mahmoud, uttered a stream of invective against Zarqawi. Deeply conservative, the heavily pregnant woman was reluctant to let herself be seen by a non-Muslim visitor.
"Yesterday we watched on television what had happened in Amman," she said from behind a veil. "The carnage was so bad, so awful, we could not eat all day long."
The Moomeni family said they had no dealings with the remnants of the Zarqawi family still living in the two-storey house at No 13. A woman answered the intercom although she politely but firmly told The Daily Telegraph to go away.
"Don't hang around here much longer", other neighbours advised. "They will start throwing stones at you." Some residents remembered the young man who was born there in the late 1960s but who did not immediately adopt religion.
He was known as Ahmed Fadel Nazal Khalayleh and some described him as a loutish teenager. "He was a bit of a thug, always walking around carrying knives," said Amer Hassoun, a 35-year-old man whose parents came to Zarqa as Palestinian refugees.
"But then he went away to Afghanistan and when he came back he had become very religious. If he came down the street today, people would want to see him because they are curious. But he is not regarded as a saint around here."
tim.butcher@telegraph.co.uk
11 November 2005: We will not be blackmailed, Jordan's king tells al-Qa'eda
10 November 2005: Suicide bombers hit hotels in Jordan's capital
telegraph.co.uk
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