Most-wanted terrorist in Iraq killed
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The targeted air strike Wednesday evening was the culmination of a two-week hunt for al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. Tips from senior militants within the network led U.S. forces to follow al-Zarqawi’s spiritual adviser to the safe house, 30 miles outside Baghdad, for a meeting with the terror leader. The adviser, Sheik Abdul Rahman, was among seven aides also killed.
Fingerprints, tattoos and scars helped U.S. troops identify al-Zarqawi’s body, White House spokesman Tony Snow said. The U.S. military showed a picture of al-Zarqawi’s face after the air strike, with his eyes closed and spots of blood behind him.
“Al-Zarqawi was eliminated,” Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said.
President Bush hailed the killing as “a severe blow to al-Qaida and it is a significant victory in the war on terror.”
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said al-Zarqawi’s death “will not mean the end of all violence in that country.”
He added that it was apt that al-Zarqawi ? who had tried to thwart Iraqi elections and formation of a new government ? died on the day the new government in Baghdad finalized its cabinet.
Around the time news reports announced al-Zarqawi’s death, two bombs hit a market and a police patrol in Baghdad, killing at least 19 people and wounding more than 40. Police differed on whether the bombs struck shortly before or after the 10:30 a.m. news. Later, a parked car bomb exploded in north Baghdad, killing six people and wounding 15.
Al-Qaida in Iraq vowed to continue its “holy war,” according to a statement posted on a Web site.
“The death of our leaders is life for us. It will only increase our persistence in continuing holy war so that the word of God will be supreme.”
The Jordanian-born terrorist, 39, was Iraq’s most-wanted militant and nearly as notorious as Osama bin Laden, to whom he swore allegiance in 2004. The United States put a $25 million bounty on his head, the same as bin Laden.
As the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Al-Zarqawi oversaw a wave of kidnappings of foreigners and the killings of at least a dozen, including Arab diplomats and three Americans. He personally is believed to have beheaded two Americans ? Nicholas Berg of West Chester, Pa., and Eugene Armstrong, formerly of Hillsdale, Mich. ? prompting supporters to dub him “the slaughtering sheik.”
Elated at news of his killing, Iraqi police in Baghdad’s Shiite slum of Sadr City fired their guns in the air and chanted. Other Iraqi citizens had mixed reactions.
U.S.-led forces came close to capturing al-Zarqawi several times since his campaign began in mid-2003. But Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said the latest hunt began two weeks ago with intelligence from senior leaders of al-Zarqawi’s network.
U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said U.S. and Iraqi intelligence found al-Zarqawi by following his spiritual adviser, who visited al-Zarqawi at the safe house, prompting the air strike. He showed a videotape of an attack in which he said F-16 fighter jets dropped two 500-pound bombs on the site.
“We had absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Zarqawi was in the house,” Caldwell said, adding that Iraqi and U.S. troops carried out 17 raids around Baghdad after al-Zarqawi’s killing.