FALLUJAH, Nov 12 (AFP) - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was reported Saturday to have fled the rebel stronghold of Fallujah, has topped a US wanted list since Saddam Hussein's capture but proved elusive despite a huge reward and relentless military pressure.
Accused of masterminding a large part of the Iraqi insurgency, Zarqawi was the reason behind the US-led assault on Fallujah in which the US military said 1,000 insurgents were killed in six days.
Through his Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) group, which recently changed its name to "The Al-Qaeda Group of Jihad in the Land of Two Rivers", he brought the horror of slow, grisly, video-taped beheadings to Iraq.
Among a host of such outrages, the group murdered British hostage Kenneth Bigley last month and two of his US colleagues in September.
A father-of-four with two wives, he also faces a death sentence in his native Jordan, where he was condemned in absentia in April to die for the 2002 killing there of a US official. Seven others were also convicted.
Zarqawi has been described as a "street thug" by King Abdullah II of Jordan, but unlike Osama bin Laden, to whom he has allegedly sworn allegiance, he has never appeared in videos or on audio tapes.
However, an audio recording posted on an Islamist website on Friday and attributed to Zarqawi called on fighters in Fallujah to resist US forces, saying the assault was "a decisive battle in the history of Islam and of heresy."
The only images of him are old grainy identity-style photographs.
While he is held responsible by the US-backed Iraqi government for numerous atrocities, a US general acknowledged this year that Zarqawi could be dead.
Born Fadel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, he was a poor student who never graduated from high school.
People in his hometown of Zarqa, from where he gets his name, remember a hot-headed youth, always armed with a pen-knife and a tattoo on his arm.
He became a radical for two reasons, those who knew him said.
He was shocked by the social openness that emerged in conservative Jordan with the arrival of tens of thousands of Palestinians who fled Kuwait after Iraq invaded the Gulf emirate in 1990.
He was also reportedly marked by a dream one of his sisters had, in which a sword came from the heavens bearing the word jihad (holy war) on one side and a verse from the Koran (the Muslim holy book) saying 'God will never abandon you and will never forget you.'
"This vision convinced him that he had a calling for an important role," a former acquaintance said.
After a period of delinquency, Zarqawi became awed by the teachings of radical Salafist Islamist Mohamad al-Makdessi, whom he met in Pakistan, where he worked as a journalist from 1988-1992 for mujahedeen newspapers.
In Jordan, Zarqawi was tried and sentenced in 1994 to 15 years in prison for membership in an illegal group and arms possession.
During the first eight months of his imprisonment, he memorised the Koran and continued to study the holy book during his incarceration at Swaqa prison between 1995 and 1997.
A veteran of the Afghan war against Soviet occupation, a US-backed conflict in the 1980s that drew many Muslim idealists, his encounter with bin Laden took place in 2000 during visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In late 2001, he was wounded in combat and lost a leg after taking up arms against US-led forces fighting to unseat the Taliban.
Contrary to claims by US President George W. Bush, the fugitive has probably never mixed with followers of Saddam, a US officer has said.
At the moment, according to another high-ranking US officer, Zarqawi commands a force of 500 to 1,000 men, swelled by some Iraqi fundamentalists.
A senior intelligence officer said in May that while Zarqawi does not drive the insurgency, his access to fighters and weapons are what make him dangerous.
Zarqawi celebrated his 38th birthday in October with a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head.

11/13/2004 16:48 GMT - AFP