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World Policy Journal
Volume XXIII, No 1, Spring 2006
Thinking Like a Jihadist: Iraq's Jordanian Connection
By Nir Rosen
Earlier this year, Muhammad Zaki Amawi and Marwan Othman el-Hindi, Jordanianborn U.S. citizens, and Wassim I. Mazloum, a Lebanese citizen, stood in a federal district court in Ohio, accused of conspiring to wage jihad against U.S. forces in Iraq. According to the indictment against them, Amawi had flown to Jordan last August carrying laptop computers that he intended to donate to the mujahidin in Iraq. Amawi, the indictment stated, had "unsuccessfully attempted to enter Iraq to wage violent jihad, or 'holy war,' against the United States and coalition forces."
This was the first time that such charges had been brought in a U.S. court. But such cases have become frequent in Jordan in recent years, with increasing numbers of young men being tried for terrorist activities. The Marka military court in Amman, Jordan, has been the scene of a number of trials, and recently I observed several of these proceedings. One was the trial of four young men, ranging in age from 19 to 28, charged with conspiracy to commit terrorist acts and with the illegal possession of a Kalashnikov. The four had met frequently in the home of the 19-year-old ringleader in the city of Madaba, south of Amman, to talk of joining the jihad against the American invaders of Iraq. According to the prosecution, the ringleader had tried and failed to cross from Syria into Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion. He and his friends then decided to attack Americans training the Iraqi police in Jordan, and began observing the routes the Americans took to and from work. The ringleader purchased a Kalashnikov, which the four practiced firing. In the meantime, the ringleader made another aborted attempt to get into Iraq through Egypt. On his return to Jordan, one of his coconspirators introduced the group to three men, one of whom was a Saudi. The strangers agreed to help with the plot against the Americans. They exchanged phone numbers and met at a McDonald's where they continued planning the operation. The ringleader was introduced to a man called Shadi, who was to supervise the operation. Shadi gave him a mobile phone and he borrowed a video camera from a friend and filmed an intersection the Americans crossed. On August 31, 2005, just as they were preparing to execute their attack, the four were arrested, the film and Kalashnikov confiscated.
On January 2, the four paced with other prisoners in a cage in the Marka courtroom as their lawyers sat in the smoke-filled waiting room, laughing and complaining about how high their union dues were. All the prisoners were dressed in dark blue denim prison suits, with wool caps on their heads and slippers on their feet. Their beards were shaggy, as was their hair, which curled out of their caps over their ears. They were hard to distinguish from each other. Some had a dark stain above their brows. It was a sima, a sign of intense piety, acquired by kneeling and bowing forward, placing the forehead on the floor in prayer. One of the prisoners grinned at his father, who also had a sima on his forehead. The father was beaming proudly.
I asked the father if I could talk to him after the trial. "The verdict is already decided," he told me. "We can gain nothing by talking." One prisoner chanted the Koran. Another read a prepared statement naming two friends who had been in prison without trial for months. When the judge walked in, the prisoners squatted in disrespect. In classical Arabic, the 19-year-old ringleader angrily shouted at the judge, calling him an infidel. Being uncertain of the charges against him, the young man spoke to the judge after the hearing. "Are you the one who called me an infidel?" the judge asked. "I didn't call you an infidel," he answered, "your work is the infidel's work." The judge lost patience. "I won't tell you what the charge is. Go back to your jail," he said.
Endnotes* Nir Rosen, a freelance journalist, is the author of In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq (The Free Press, forthcoming).