Please give me a call in the morning when you have time. Thank you.
Joseph I found this link from The Jamestown Foundation, Global Terrorism Analysis helpful.
It describes very well the Zarqawi history including when he joined up with Ansar Al Islam.
http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2369021
“After spending some time in a Jordanian prison, Zarqawi returned to Afghanistan and subsequently established a training camp in the western city of Herat. Though he apparently assembled 80 to 100 people, largely Palestinians and Jordanians committed to jihad but with no formal name for the group, there is not thought to have been any links to al-Qaeda at this time. Evidence gathered from Shadi Abdullah, an Islamist arrested in Germany in 2002, even points to competition between Zarqawi and bin Laden for recruits during this period, though Zarqawi seemed far more focused on overthrowing the Jordanian regime and recruited almost exclusively Palestinians and Jordanians.
After the U.S. attacked the Taliban, Zarqawi moved first to Iran. He was then pressured to move on and traveled just over the border into Iraqi Kurdistan as the only available place for refuge. Here he developed links with a new generation of Salifists who had not fought in the original Afghan jihad, including Ansar al-Islam, which had established itself on the Iranian border and taken control of a number of villages. Reports from militants claim that Iran was concerned over their location and asked them to move three miles from the border to avoid any direct contact between Iranians and the Ansar forces. Jihadist fighters then flowed into Northern Iraq from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Iran. [4]”