Bay'at al-Imam ( en, " Allegiance to the Imam") was a jihadist group active from 1994 to 1999, led by

Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi ( ar, أبو محمد المقدسي, ʾAbū Muḥammad al-Maqdisī), or more fully Abu Muhammad Essam al-Maqdisi ( ar, أبو محمد عصام المقدسي, ʾAbū Muḥammad ʿIṣām al-Maqdisī), is the assumed name ...

and later

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ( ar, أَبُو مُصْعَبٍ ٱلزَّرْقَاوِيُّ, ', ''Father of Musab, from Zarqa''; ; October 30, 1966 – June 7, 2006), born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh (, '), was a Jordanian jihadist who ran a t ...

. Some scholars dispute the group's existence. The group was founded in Zarqa, Jordan in 1993 when Zarqawi helped al-Maqdisi gather a group of veteran

Afghan Arab Afghan Arabs (also known as Arab-Afghans) are Arab and other Muslim Islamist mujahideen who came to Afghanistan during and following the Soviet–Afghan War to help fellow Muslims fight Soviets and pro-Soviet Afghans. Estimates of the volunt ...

mujahedeen fighters to stage a coup to overthrow the Jordanian government. The group was primarily active from 1995 to 1999. In 1997 the

State Security Court The State Security Court is a judicial institution in Jordan. It deals with cases regarding state security, but also with drug offences and other types of cases. The defendants in the court can be both military personnel as well as civilians. The C ...

of Jordan convicted 10 members of the group on charges including manufacturing explosives, handing down sentences up to life imprisonment, and in the case of Salem Bakhit and Ahmad Khaled, life plus 10 years for the murder of a French diplomat in his driveway. Zarqawi would later be given a death sentence '' in absentia''. An internet biography of the pre-

9/11 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

life of Zarqawi attributed to

Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...

commander

Saif al-Adel Saif al-Adel ( ar, سيف العدل; born April 11, 1960/63) is a former Egyptian colonel, explosives expert, and a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda who is still at large. Adel is under indictment by the United StatesNada Bakos Nada Glass Bakos is an American former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst and targeting officer who was involved in a number of notable Counter-terrorism, counterterrorism operations during her career. She was part of a group of CIA anal ...

, the chief targeting officer who led the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

's efforts to track down Zarqawi, and ''Black Flags'' by

Joby Warrick Joby Warrick (born August 4, 1960) is an American journalist who has worked for ''The Washington Post'' since 1996, mostly writing about the Middle East, diplomacy, and national security. He has also written about the United States Intelligence C ...

, the group's first mission to bomb a theater showing pornographic films went awry when Eid Jahaline, the jihadist sent to place the

time bomb A time bomb (or a timebomb, time-bomb) is a bomb whose detonation is triggered by a timer. The use (or attempted use) of time bombs has been for various purposes including insurance fraud, terrorism, assassination, sabotage and warfare. They ar ...

in the theater became so enthralled with the pornography being shown that he lost track of time and forgot to leave prior to detonation, amputating both of his legs.

Relations with other terror groups

Tajik intelligence has claimed links between Bay'at al-Imam, Bayat - a Tajik Islamic organization, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an organization affiliated with

References

{{Reflist Jihadist groups Terrorism in Jordan