I can hang with the US in the first stage, but when they are eliminated where do I go? Which grandparent do I annoy?

Frankly, I think my grandmothers [England & the Netherlands] are poised for more success.

The security forces and King of Jordan are breathing a lot easier today, the number one name on their most wanted list has been eliminated and they are not faced with tribal unrest as a result.

Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalaylehof of the Beni Hassan tribe of Bedouin [AKA Abu Musab al-Zarqawi] has died and the government cannot be tied to his death. Even though the al-Khalaylehof clan had disowned him after the bombing in Amman, some in the clan might have felt obliged to revenge the death. It could have gotten messy as the Beni Hassan Bedouin are 10% of the Jordanian population.

Taking his nom de bomb from his native city and state, Zarqa, Zarqawi’s stated goal was to “purify” the Islamic governments, beginning with Jordan. He claimed to be a Salafi Muslim which is about as fundamental as it gets.

His relationship with bin Laden was rather strained. Bin Laden has a larger viewpoint and wants to attack the “enemy” on his own turf, while Zarqawi felt that the Islamic governments must be purified before anything else. They came together in their agreement that foreign elements must be expelled from the Islamic world.

In military terms, Zarqawi’s organization was a battalion of a few hundred members at it’s largest. He would rank as a major or lieutenant colonel at most in a regular army. His effect was magnified by his totally ruthless tactics. It is very likely that those tactics are responsible for his death, as he was making enemies wholesale by killing the innocent. His clan renounced him to avoid being entangled in the revenge his actions required among the tribal groups.

The Shi’ia will breathe easier with this death, because he considered them heretics who needed to be removed to “purify” Islam.