Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad

Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Congregation of Monotheism and Jihad)
Participant in the Iraq War
A flag that was in use by Jama'at al-Tawhid wal Jihad in late 2004
Active	1999–17 October 2004
Leaders	Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Abu Hafs al-Amazighi
Headquarters	Fallujah
Area of operations	Iraq, limited in Jordan
Became	Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Allies	Ansar al-Islam
Opponents	Multinational force in Iraq, Iraq (Iraqi security forces, Kurdish and Shia militias), Jordan, United Nations
Battles and wars	Iraqi insurgency

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (English: Organization of Monotheism and Jihad) was a militant Jihadist group led by the Jordanian national Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This group's name may be abbreviated as JTJ . The group started in Jordan in 1999, then became a decentralized network during the Iraqi insurgency (2003–11) with foreign fighters and a considerable Iraqi membership.

Following al-Zarqawi's pledge of allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network on 17 October 2004, the group became known as al-Qaeda in Iraq or Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn. After several rounds of name changes and mergers with other groups, the organization is now known as Islamic State (IS).

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a Jordanian-Palestinian Jihadist who had traveled to Afghanistan to fight in the Soviet-Afghan War, but he arrived after the departure of the Soviet troops and soon returned to his homeland. He eventually returned to Afghanistan, running an Islamic militant training camp near Herat.

A report released by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in mid-2014 describes Al-Zarqawi as starting his jihadist group Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, with Jordanian and other Sunni Jihadist militants, in 1999 in Afghanistan with its training camp in Herat, Afghanistan, and with "a small amount of seed money" from Osama bin Laden "which continued until 9/11".