Blogger News Network

June 8, 2006 

The head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been killed in an air strike on a building north of Baqubah city, according to the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

"Today [sic] Zarqawi has been terminated," he said Thursday, and suggested the man the United States had placed a $25 million price tag on for death or capture was located through intelligence.

"What happened today is a result of co-operation for which we have been asking from our masses and the citizens of our country," he said.

The leader of coalition forces in Iraq, General George Casey said al-Zarqawi was killed in a safehouse about 8km north of the city in Diyala province.

Several aides also died with him in the Wednesday evening raid, including his key lieutenant and spiritual adviser Sheik Abdul Rahman. Some analysts believe a US counter-terrorism unit, Task Force 145, was involved in the attack.

Al-Zarqawi's body, recovered after 500-pound bombs had blown through his cover, was identified through fingerprint and scar analysis and head likeness. Al-Zarqawi, whose real name was Ahmed Fadhil Nazzal al-Khalayleh, was believed to be in his late 30s when he died.

The self-proclaimed frontman for Osama Bin Laden's activities in Iraq, al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian national, is said to have been involved in the beheading of foreigners, hundreds of suicide attacks, and an insurgency against coalition forces after the Iraq war in 2003.

It had been reported Al-Zarqawi's most recent campaign was to create problems between Shi'ite and Sunni groups in Iraq with ethnic killings.

For the Iraqi government the killing of the wanted murderer is what they sought but it remains unknown what effect the removal of this known figurehead of the Iraq insurgency will have on levels of violence in the country. Al-Zarqawi was not the only person to oppose the US-backed Iraqi government.

"Zarqawi didn't have a number two. I can't think of any single person who would succeed Zarqawi...In terms of effectiveness, there was no single leader in Iraq who could match his ruthlessness and his determination," was the view of Rohan Gumaratna at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore.

Applause was heard as Mr Maliki, with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and U.S. Gen. George Casey, by his side, told news reporters "al-Zarqawi was terminated."

Sources claiming to be Al-Qaeda in Iraq later confirmed that al-Zarqawi had been killed and said that they would fight the United States and the interim Iraqi government despite his death.

The US military also confirmed that six people were killed in the strike: Mr. Zarqawi, his spiritual adviser and four other people including a woman and a child.

Sources

• "Militant al-Zarqawi killed in air attack". CBC.CA, June 8, 2006
• "Al-Qaeda's Zarqawi killed in Iraq". Reuters, June 8, 2006
• "Al-Qaida in Iraq's al-Zarqawi 'terminated'". MSNBC, June 8, 2006
• "Zarqawi killed in Iraq air raid". BBC News, June 8, 2006
• Mohammed Abu Ghosh and Jamal Halaby "Al-Zarqawi now a martyr, his brother says". Seattle Times and Seattle Post Intelligencer, June 8, 2006
• John F. Burns "Leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq Is Killed In American Airstrike North of Baghdad". The New York Times, June 8, 2006
• Patrick Quinn "Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi Killed in Air Raid". Associated Press, June 8, 2006
• Bill Roggio "The demise of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, courtesy of Task Force 145 (with airstrike video)". Counterterrorism Blog, June 8, 2006