On October 19, 2004, militant Jordanian “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi publicly declared his allegiance to Bin Laden and stated that this was the result of eight months of contacts between his organization and Al Qaeda. Zarqawi’s group was now renamed Qaedat al-Jihad in Mesopotamia [Iraq].”
– Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli, eds., Al Qaeda In Its Own Words, Page 248