The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (Atlantic Monthly)

At least five times, in 2000 and 2001, bin Laden called al-Zarqawi to come
to Kandahar and pay bayat-take an oath of allegiance-to him. Each time,
al-Zarqawi refused. Under no circumstances did he want to become involved in
the battle between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. He also did not
believe that either bin Laden or the Taliban was serious enough about jihad.

...

"Even then-and even more so now-Zarqawi was not the main force in the
insurgency," the former Jordanian intelligence official, who has studied
al-Zarqawi for a decade, told me. "To establish himself, he carried out the
Muhammad Hakim operation, and the attack against the UN. Both of them gained
a lot of support for him-with the tribes, with Saddam's army and other
remnants of his regime. They made Zarqawi the symbol of the resistance in
Iraq, but not the leader. And he never has been."

He continued, "The Americans have been patently stupid in all of this.
They've blown Zarqawi so out of proportion that, of course, his prestige has
grown. And as a result, sleeper cells from all over Europe are coming to
join him now." He paused for a moment, then said, "Your government is
creating a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Western and Israeli diplomats to whom I spoke shared this view-and this
past April, The Washington Post reported on Pentagon documents that detailed
a U.S. military propaganda campaign to inflate al-Zarqawi's importance.
Then, the following month, the military appeared to attempt to reverse field
and portray al-Zarqawi as an incompetent who could not even handle a gun.
But by then his image in the Muslim world was set.