text: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (Arabic: أبومصعب الزرقاوي‎) (c. October 1966 – June 7, 2006) was a Salafi Muslim terrorist leader and the self-proclaimed leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. One or more individuals identifying themselves as Zarqawi took responsibility, on several audiotapes, for numerous acts of terrorism in Iraq, including the killing of many civilians and the taking of hostages. He was also allegedly responsible for many other acts of violence, including the beheading of hostages (possibly including Nick Berg) in Iraq.\n\nAs an Islamist identified with the Salafi movement of Wahhabism, Zarqawi opposed the presence of American and Western military forces in the Islamic world and opposed the West's support for Israel. In September 2005, he reportedly declared "all-out war" on Shia Muslims in Iraq,[1] and is believed responsible for dispatching numerous Al-Qaeda suicide bombers throughout Iraq, and especially to areas with large concentrations of Shia civilians. As the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq he is suspected of causing thousands of people's deaths--many if not most of them civilians.\n\nZarqawi, a longtime ally of Osama bin Laden, was a high-ranking member of bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, and since October 2004 had referred to his own organization Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, or Monotheism and Holy War Group, an insurgent network operating in Iraq, as "Al-Qaeda in Iraq". On October 21, 2004, Zarqawi officially announced his allegiance to Al Qaeda; on December 27, 2004, Al Jazeera broadcast an audiotape of bin Laden calling Zarqawi "the prince of al Qaeda in Iraq" and asked "all our organization brethren to listen to him and obey him in his good deeds."[2]\n\nZarqawi was the most wanted man in Jordan and Iraq,[3] having participated in or masterminded a number of violent actions against United States, Jordanian and Iraqi targets. The U.S. government offered a USD $25 million reward for information leading to his capture, the same amount offered for the capture of bin Laden before March 2004. On October 15, 2004, the U.S. State Department added Zarqawi and the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal Jihad group to its "list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations" and ordered a freeze on any assets that the group might have in the United States. On February 24, 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice's FBI also added al-Zarqawi to the "Seeking Information – War on Terrorism" list, the first time that he had ever been added to any of the FBI's three major "wanted" lists.[4]\n\nZarqawi was killed in Baquba by a United States airstrike on June 7, 2006