ARQA, Jordan – Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the small-time thug who became the mastermind of global jihad in Iraq, inspired a hard-core following in poor villages and urban slums across the Arab world.

Hours after Zarqawi’s death in an American airstrike, some of those followers in his hometown yesterday celebrated his message of relentless, brutal violence, and pledged to carry it forward without him.

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