Is Zarqawi the New Bin Laden?

By Bruce Crumley

Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, was rumored to be gravely injured or dead just a few months ago. Since then, his organization is believed to have been behind barbaric attacks in Iraq and has even claimed responsibility for a failed rocket assault on a U.S. ship in the Red Sea. It's hard to separate the man from the mythology, but recent European intelligence reports reviewed by TIME suggest that al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda franchise is expanding far beyond Iraq and that he now rivals Osama bin Laden in influence among Middle Eastern and European jihadists.

Al-Zarqawi has been overseeing preparations by highly trained operatives for a "large scale" terrorist attack in Europe, the reports claim. In communications with another al-Qaeda leader, he has spoken of sleeper cells in Turkey and Iran. The reports imply that these cells may be in contact with European jihadist groups that previously had no links to al-Qaeda. "The fear is we'll see these disparate, relatively inexperienced groups around Europe hook up with Afghan-trained terror cells, all under the influence of Zarqawi," says independent French terrorism expert Roland Jacquard, who says he has seen intelligence similar to that in the reports. "That could reverse the atomization of cells and networks that occurred after the invasion of Afghanistan."

European officials say the reports are based in part on U.S. officials' interrogation of suspected al-Qaeda deputy Abu Faraj al-Libbi, captured last May in Pakistan. (The CIA declined to comment.) Al-Zarqawi has written to al-Libbi about setting up camps in Jordan, Turkey, Syria or Lebanon, European officials say. He hoped the camps would provide instruction in European languages to facilitate jihadi attacks in Iraq and Europe.

For now, al-Zarqawi is still on the run from U.S. forces. So there are limits to how much global networking he can do. But he is a skilled delegator, says one French official. And he doesn't even have to contact far-flung cells to influence them; he just has to inspire them from afar. --By Bruce Crumley