The hometown of the dead arch-terrorist Zarqawi to become the center of $4B development project

Posted on June 24, 2008
Filed Under Economy, Middle East, News

Milkyway Galaxy - Solar system - Planet Earth - Middle East - Jordan - the town of Zarqa. This is where one of the most vile men that ever walked this planet was born, and from a dusty town, stricken by fear, shame, anger, poverty and misery, it is likely to become a home of $4 Billion development project - the largest one in Jordan.

Photo by Bryand Denton, New York Times

Zarqa, a gritty, industrial city infamous for producing Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the late al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, is the unlikely home of Jordan’s biggest new development project.

The $4bn scheme will be named after King Abdullah, the ruler of Saudi Arabia who is one of its principal financiers. It will ultimately house some 500,000 residents over an area the size of lower Manhattan, making it the largest real estate project in the Middle East outside the Gulf.

The development of former military land by Mawared, a state-owned investment company with strong links to the Jordanian military, aims to tackle Jordan’s housing shortage, and promote Zarqa’s economy, in an area long known as a breeding ground for Islamic extremism.

The biggest scumbag this town produced won’t be around to enjoy the fruit of this project, which represents everything this man despised and worked against - development and progress - what an irony.

Oh well, if only he knew…or maybe he does.

There is, however, a debate whether this project will benefit the poor of the town. I tend to see this debate as probably the healthiest one that can and should be held the economically developing society. To me, it is the best indicator that things are on the right track.