Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad

Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Group of Monotheism and Jihad), abbreviated as JTJ or Jama'at, was an Islamic extremist Salafi jihadist terrorist group. It was founded in Jordan in 1999, and was led by Jordanian national Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for the entirety of its existence. During the Iraqi insurgency (2003–11), the group became a decentralized network with foreign fighters with a considerable Iraqi membership. On 17 October 2004, al-Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, and the group became known as Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (commonly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq or Tanzim). After several mergers with other groups, it changed its name several times until it called itself Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) in 2006. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a Jordanian Jihadist who traveled to Afghanistan to fight with in the Soviet–Afghan War, but arrived after the departure of the Soviet troops, and soon returned to his homeland. He eventually returned to Afghanistan, where he ran an Islamic militant training camp near Herat. A report released by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in mid-2014 describes al-Zarqawi, in association with other Jordanians and Sunni Jihadist militants, as starting JTJ in 1999 with its training camp in Herat, and with "a small amount of seed money" from bin Laden "which continued until 9/11". Al-Zarqawi's interpretation of Islamic takfir—accusing other Muslims of heresy and thereby justifying his killing—was extreme, which caused friction between him and bin Laden. On his first meeting with bin Laden in 1999, al-Zarqawi reportedly declared: "Shiites should be executed". Al-Zarqawi's political motives included what he considered the British Mandate for Palestine as a "gift to the Jews so they can rape the land and humiliate our people", the United Nation's support for American "oppressors of Iraq", and the "humiliation [of] our [Muslim] nation". Al-Zarqawi started JTJ with the intention of overthrowing the 'apostate' Kingdom of Jordan, which he considered to be un-Islamic.