International
Al-Qaida Leader Killed In Iraq
Scott Reeves, 06.08.06, 10:20 AM ET
U.S. war planes killed al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Thursday in an air strike in a remote area about 30 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Al-Zarqawi had plotted some of the most vicious murder-suicide attacks in Iraq, and he is believed to have beheaded at least two American hostages, Nicholas Berg in April 2004 and Eugene Armstrong in September 2004. The murder of Berg, an American contractor, was videotaped and posted on the Internet.
President George W. Bush called the strike a "severe blow" to the terrorist organization. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said al-Zarqawi's death was a "strike against al-Qaida everywhere."
Seven of al-Zarqawi's aides were also killed in the raid.
In a statement posted on its Web site, al-Qaida in Iraq confirmed al-Zarqawi's death and vowed to continue its "holy war."
"We want to give you the joyous news of the martyrdom of the mujahed sheik Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," said the statement, signed by "Abu Abdel-Rahman al-Iraqi," identified as the deputy emir, or leader, of al-Qaida in Iraq. "The death of our leaders is life for us. It will only increase our persistence in continuing holy war so that the world of God will be supreme."
In April, al-Zarqawi released a videotape showing his face for the first time. Analysts believe this was an attempt to strengthen his image as the leader of Iraq's insurgents. Iraqi officials said the tape helped lead U.S. forces to al-Zarqawi, but did not give details.
Born Ahmad Fadhil Nazzal al-Khalayleh in October 1966 in Jordan, al-Zarqawi took his war name from Zarqa, an industrial town. He apparently embraced radical Islam while in a Jordanian prison in the late 1990s.
He was released in an amnesty and went to Afghanistan in 1999. There he formed links with Osama bin Laden, planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. Al-Zarqawi fled after the U.S. kicked out the Taliban in late 2001 and made his way to Iraq, according to biographies posted on Islamic Web sites and U.S. military officials.
In 2003, al-Zarqawi emerged as a leader of "Tawhid and Jihad," or "Monotheism and Holy War." In October 2004, the group announced on its Web site that it had sworn an oath to al-Qaida and bin Laden, "the father of all fighters," and changed its name to "al-Qaida in Iraq." That December, bin Laden endorsed al-Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq. Al-Zarqawi sought to spark civil war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims throughout the Middle East and called Shiites "enemies of Islam."
The terrorist group claims to have carried out some of the most murderous suicide attacks in Iraq, including two blasts in August 2003: one against the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad that killed 22 people, including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N. envoy to Iraq, and another against a Shiite shrine in Najaf that killed about 85 people, including Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakin, a Shiite leader.
Some TV stations in the Middle East interrupted scheduled programming to report al-Zarqawi's death. But in Saudi Arabia, a program on the need for women to be connected to their environment played on the official station after the news had been reported elsewhere.
In Syria, news of al-Zarqawi's death appeared only in a news bar at the bottom of the screen during a call-in show.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki confirmed al-Zarqawi's death at a press conference. He said there had been several efforts to kill him in the last week and a half.
"Today, al-Zarqawi was terminated," he told reporters, drawing applause and cheers.