Knight Ridder Newspapers

ZARQA, Jordan – Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader who was killed by American bombs in Iraq, was mourned in his hometown Thursday and hailed as a martyr and hero.

About 100 men of all ages sat under a colorful funeral tent in this desert city about 20 miles north of Amman, the Jordanian capital, and leaned their heads down as they recited from the Quran. A white funeral banner flapped in the wind. “The Azza (condolence house) of the Martyr and Hero Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” it proclaimed.

“He was a symbol for the people here,” said Mohammed Kinani, 23, as he passed the site of the mosque in his neighborhood. “Most people say he was a hero, he was against the American occupation.”

How al-Zarqawi is remembered in the Arab world may say much about whether his death will help quell or fuel future violence in Iraq, and about the deep divisions within the Arab world. Al-Zarqawi’s forces in Iraq included many foreigners who saw Iraq as a place to directly confront the United States and the West.

In contrast, other interviews in Cairo, Egypt, and in Amman found many who were pleased by al-Zarqawi’s death. “He was a terrorist and it’s good he died,” said Mohamed Hashem, 28, a Cairo salesman. “Islam doesn’t call for terrorism.”

“May he burn in hell,” said Samah Fareed, 32, a bank supervisor in Cairo.

At an upscale mall in west Amman, where shoppers walked through metal detectors and their bags were searched, there was no praise for the dead terrorist who has been blamed for the November 2005 bombs that ripped through three hotels there.

“It was as if I were watching a soccer game and my team won and I cheered out in joy,” said Soufian al-Omari, 22, describing the moment he learned of al-Zarqawi’s assassination. “This is for the souls of the people who were killed in Jordan and in Iraq.”

But there were many expressions of sympathy as well. “People’s reactions in the region will vary, but mostly they will sympathize with Zarqawi,” said Mohamed Habib, the deputy leader of the Cairo branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is banned but tolerated in Egypt.

“He was part of one of the schools of Islamic jihad and he fought for Islam, though our methods differed,” said Walid al-Khatib, director of the Islamic Work Front in Irbid, next to Zarqawi’s hometown.

In the neighborhood of Hai al-Ramsey, where al-Zarqawi was raised, neighbors can point to the decrepit apartment building where he lived, and many speak of him with praise. Much of his family still lives here. His cousins run a furniture rental store down the street.

“Every Arab and every Muslim feels the despotism of America,” said Khaled Samarra, 41, a juice distributor here. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend…We are proud of Zarqawi. All things aside his foot is better than the treasonous Americans and the underhanded.”

Al-Zarqawi’s family was in isolation Thursday. Neighbors warned journalists not to approach them and reported that the family’s children had thrown rocks at reporters who had interrupted their grief.

Earlier, Jordanian intelligence officers took away al-Zarqawi’s brother-in-law and an Al-Jazeera cameraman filming him for the Arabic satellite news channel, witnesses said.

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