Major News: U.S.: Al-Zarqawi No. 2 killed in Baghdad

[Spectrum]

U.S.: Al-Zarqawi No. 2 killed in Baghdad
Military says top aide to Jordanian-born terrorist shot dead on Sunday

The Associated Press
Updated: 2:18 p.m. ET Sept. 27, 2005


BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. and Iraqi authorities said Tuesday their forces had killed the No. 2 official in the al-Qaida in Iraq organization in a weekend raid in Baghdad, claiming to have struck a “painful blow” to the country’s most feared insurgent group.

Abdullah Abu Azzam led al-Qaida’s operations in Baghdad, planning a brutal wave of suicide bombings in the capital since April, killing hundreds of people, officials said. He also controlled the finances for foreign fighters that flowed into Iraq to join the insurgency.

Abu Azzam, who an Iraqi government spokesman said was an Iraqi, was the top deputy to the group’s leader, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Abu Azzam was on a list of Iraq’s 29 most-wanted insurgents issued by the U.S. military in February and had a bounty of $50,000 on his head.

Al-Qaida denial
Al-Qaida in Iraq denied that Abu Azzam was the No. 2 leader of the organization and said “it was not confirmed” that he was killed. “Abu Azzam was one of al-Qaida’s many soldiers and is the leader of one of its battalions operating in Baghdad,” the group said in an Internet statement by its spokesman, Abu Maysara al-Iraqi.

It called the U.S. and Iraqi claims that he was the group’s top deputy “a futile attempt ... to raise the morale of their troops.”

Elsewhere, a suicide bomber attacked Iraqis applying for jobs as policemen Tuesday in Baqouba, 30 miles north of Baghdad, killing nine and wounding 21.

The U.S. military also said a Marine was killed Monday by a roadside bomb in the town of Khaldiyah, west of Baghdad. The death brought to 1,918 the number of U.S. troops who have died since the Iraq war started in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Police found the bodies of 22 Iraqi men who had been shot to death in southern Iraq, many of them bound and blindfolded, said Maj. Felah Al-Mohammedawi of the Interior Ministry. Their identities were not immediately known, but the district — northeast of Kut, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad — is mostly Shiite.

'Painful blow' to al-Qaida
It was not immediately clear what effect Abu Azzam’s death would have on al-Qaida in Iraq, which has been one of the deadliest militant groups, carrying out suicide attacks that targeted the country’s Shiite majority. The U.S. military has claimed to have killed or captured leading al-Zarqawi aides in the past and attacks have continued unabated — although Abu Azzam appeared to be a more significant figure.

Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the killing of Abu Azzam would force insurgents “to go to the bench and find somebody that is probably less knowledgeable and less qualified.”

“It’s like fighting the al-Qaida network. It will have some impact, but over time they will replace people,” Myers said at the Pentagon.

Iraqi government spokesman Laith Kubba called the killing of Abu Azzam a “painful blow” to al-Qaida, but warned that the group would likely carry out revenge attacks.

Abu Azzam was killed early Sunday when U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a high-rise apartment building in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, a U.S. military spokesman, told the AP.

“They went in to capture him, he did not surrender, and he was killed in the raid,” Boylan said.

The Iraqi and U.S. forces targeted the building after a tip from an Iraqi citizen, Kubba said. During the raid, the troops captured another militant in the apartment with Abu Azzam, Kubba said.

Long list of bloody deeds
Abu Azzam — whose real name is Abdullah Najim Abdullah Mohamed Al-Jawari — was the No. 2 figure in al-Qaida in Iraq, Kubba and Boylan said.

He had claimed responsibility for the assassinations of a number of top politicians, including a car bomb in May 2004 that killed Izzadine Saleem, the president of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, and a July 2004 attack that killed the governor of Nineveh province, the military said.

He was the group’s “amir” or leader in Anbar, the vast western province that is the heartland of the insurgency, until spring, when he became the amir in Baghdad and led operations in and around the capital. He was “responsible for the recent upsurge in violent attacks in the city since April 2005,” the military said.

“We continue to decimate the leadership of the al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorist network and continue to disrupt their operations,” said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, Multi-National Force-Iraq spokesman. “By taking Abu Azzam off the street, another close associate of Zarqawi, we have dealt another serious blow to al-Zarqawi’s terrorist organization.”

Abu Azzam “personally planned and ordered suicide car bomb attacks” in Baghdad and was responsible for financing for the group and its “international communications,” Kubba said.


Other leaders killed
Abu Azzam’s death was followed by two other successes against al-Qaida in Iraq’s leadership, officials said — the group’s leader in the northern city of Mosul surrendered to the Iraqi military, and its leader in the town of Karabila in the sensitive region near the Syrian border was killed.

The Karabila leader, identified only as Abu Nasser, died along with several others Monday in a raid on the group’s headquarters in the city, Kubba told a news conference, without elaborating. Gen. Wafiq al-Samaraei, the Iraqi president’s national security adviser, said Abu Nasser was killed in a U.S. airstrike. The U.S. military confirmed an airstrike in the region Monday, but gave no details on casualties.

The area near the Syrian border is key to the infiltration of foreign fighters joining Iraq’s insurgency. Kubba acknowledged that “foreigners move freely” in the region.

The Baqouba suicide bomber slipped into a building where the Iraqis were applying to join Iraq’s Quick Reaction Police Force, said a commander who spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about his security.

Nine Iraqis were killed and 21 wounded in the blast, said Adhid Mita’ab, an official at Baqouba General Hospital.

The attack, along with the news of the Marine’s death, raised to at least 62 the number of people killed in the past three days in Iraq, less than a month before a national referendum on Iraq’s draft constitution.

In Baghdad, visiting NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer opened a long-awaited training academy for Iraqi military officers.

“This center makes and marks a significant step toward a more secure Iraq,” de Hoop Scheffer said after hoisting a NATO flag over the center. “NATO is here to help the Iraqi government to develop the tools it needs.”

NATO’s role in Iraq has been limited to training Iraqi forces and supplying equipment, due to opposition for a wider role led by France and Germany.

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
© 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9498356/

 

[Greed]

why is this major news? you act like the attacks will stop or slow down because of this.

and thats not even taking into account whether or not this is true.

on this board this thread qualifies as pro-bush propaganda.

 

[Spectrum]

why is this major news? you act like the attacks will stop or slow down because of this.

and thats not even taking into account whether or not this is true.

on this board this thread qualifies as pro-bush propaganda.

Pro-bush propaganda? What? I think it's major news because from all accounts, he has always been the brains behind the operation and Bin Ladin was the money and face of the entity and movement. Shit had nothing to do with thoughts on Bush. Maybe you want to spin it that way.

How did you assume that i though the attacks were going to stop?

I didn't make a statement one way or the other. However, that is a major score in crippling that organization's leadership though it does now operate in autonamous segments with a decentralized "management" system.

But you need to chill with the "pro-bush" and assuming where my view points are buddy beause I didn't express them. I posted and article from MSNBC with no personal commentary.

If Chainey died would it be major news?..YES...would it change the course of current U.S. policy. No. But's it news nonetheless.

 

[African Herbsman]

This is a great victory in the war on terror. America must stay the course.

 

[QueEx]

... Abu Azzam was killed early Sunday when U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a high-rise apartment building in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, a U.S. military spokesman, told the AP.

“They went in to capture him, he did not surrender, and he was killed in the raid,” Boylan said.

The Iraqi and U.S. forces targeted the building after a tip from an Iraqi citizen, Kubba said.

.

<font size="5"><center>Al-Qaeda's No 2 in Iraq is shot dead after betrayal
</font size></center>

From Anthony Loyd in Baghdad
THE TIMES Online
September 27, 2005

AN AL-QAEDA commander claimed by the Americans to be the group’s second-in-command in Iraq has been shot dead in a raid on his safe house, the US military said yesterday.

Abu Azzam, a financier and religious aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and leader of al-Qaeda’s operations in Baghdad, was killed by American and Iraqi special forces while sheltering in a block of flats, having apparently been betrayed by an al-Qaeda insider.



In a separate development, Iraqi police found the decomposing bodies of 22 Iraqi men near Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad. They had been bound, blindfolded and shot in the head in what appeared to be another in a series of sectarian killings.

A US military spokesman said that Azzam had been traced thanks to “multiple intelligence sources and information from a close associate”, adding: “During the operation, which was held with the intent of capturing him, he fired and he was killed by return fire.”

It was unclear why, for such a senior operative, Azzam had a bounty of a mere $50,000 (£28,000) placed on his head by the US in a list of Iraq’s 29 most-wanted terrorists. Other bounties ran to several million dollars.

American and Iraqi officials have frequently claimed to have killed or captured top lieutenants of al-Zarqawi in Iraq, though al-Qaeda’s subsequent ability to strike against targets across the country has scarcely been impaired.

Azzam, whose real name is Abdullah Najim Abdullah Mohamed al-Jawari, may be more significant. The Iraqi-born terrorist was an able field commander who had claimed to be behind the assassinations of several leading politicians, including the car bomb that killed Izzadine Saleem, president of the US-appointed Governing Council, in May last year, and an attack in July that year that killed the governor of Nineveh province.

The US military said that Azzam had been al-Qaeda’s “emir” in Anbar province, heartland of the Sunni insurgency, until the spring, when he became al-Qaeda’s operations chief in Baghdad, and had overseen the upsurge of violent attacks in the city.

A suicide bomber attacked a police station in Baquba, 30 miles north of Baghdad, yesterday, killing nine and bringing the death toll during the past three days to at least 62.

Al-Zarqawi is known to have deputed his leadership to al-Qaeda regional commanders, known as emirs. As well as co-ordinating the finance, logistics, planning and operations for their commands, these emirs work with propaganda officers who broadcasting al-Qaeda’s “successes” to mobilise support and funding.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1800919,00.html

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>Zarqawi emerging as self-sustained force-US intel</font size>

<font size="4">despite repeated blows by U.S. forces
and the reported death of his second-in-command</font size></center>

27 Sep 2005 20:34:36 GMT
Source: Reuters

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's network of al Qaeda-linked insurgents is emerging as a self-sustaining force, despite repeated blows by U.S. forces and the reported death of his second-in-command, U.S. intelligence officials and other experts say.

The Zarqawi network, responsible for some of the Iraqi insurgency's bloodiest attacks, has grown into a loose confederation of mainly native Iraqis trained by former Baath Party regime officers in explosives, small arms, rockets and surface-to-air missiles.

Since U.S. counter-insurgency assaults forced many of its operatives to exit Iraq's cities, counterterrorism officials say al Qaeda has been trying to set up a safe haven for training and command operations in western Anbar province.

"The suggestion is that this has shifted from being a terrorist network to a guerrilla army," said Vali Nasr, a national security affairs expert at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

"If this were not checked, the insurgents would become not only militarily more powerful, but politically more powerful. We're definitely trying to deny that milestone to Zarqawi."

U.S. military officials on Tuesday said they had killed Zarqawi's No. 2 in Iraq, an operative identified as Abu Azzam. Al Qaeda did not verify the U.S. claim.

But intelligence officials said the death of Zarqawi himself would not mean al Qaeda's defeat in Iraq, partly because he has ceded authority over day-to-day operations to regional commanders and tribal leaders who operate according to his strategic guidelines.

"If he died in the cause, that's huge. That's what everybody wants. Then he's a giant figurehead and everybody can do something in his name," one intelligence official said.

"He has enough force in place to sustain operations," the official added. "Al Qaeda in Iraq ... regenerates very quickly. You knock off a guy who's in charge in a certain area, another person steps into the gap."

Zarqawi's network, believed to consist of 2,000 to 5,000 hardcore fighters and an equal number of active supporters, represents 10-15 percent of the Iraq insurgency in numbers of fighters, officials say.

Defense and counterterrorism officials said Zarqawi's insurgents have recently been joined by elements of Jaish Mohammad, a 4,000-member insurgent group loyal to Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime. The addition gives Zaraqwi new tactical skills inside Baghdad, a defense official said.

Although the Jordanian-born Zarqawi has long been associated with foreign fighters, officials believe 85 to 90 percent of al Qaeda in Iraq's members are Iraqi.

A minority of foreign fighters carry out most of the group's suicide bombings, which has made Zarqawi's network appear more effective than other segments of the insurgency.

While committing only about 2 percent of insurgent attacks, officials say, the Zarqawi network has killed 17 percent of the insurgency's victims, the vast majority of them Iraqis.

Zarqawi, who has a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head, has also surpassed the insurgency's Baathist and former regime elements in part by using the Internet as a propaganda tool for circulating sensational images of attacks on U.S. forces.

With Iraq's constitutional referendum due on Oct. 15, officials say Zarqawi appears to be consolidating his position at the forefront of the Sunni insurgency by declaring all-out war on the country's majority Shi'ite population.

But his main strategic objective remains the expulsion of U.S. forces from Iraq, a goal that officials say has helped him unify support among local Sunni Arab insurgents.

"They're the ones seen to be drawing American blood," said Steven Simon, co-author of the book, "The Age of Sacred Terror" (Random House).

Attacks on civilians have earned Zaraqwi criticism from Sunni political groups such as the Iraqi Islamic Party. Other mainstream Sunni groups have avoided the issue.

But there is growing concern that Sunni political isolation will only deepen if the upcoming referendum vote ends leads to the adoption of the proposed constitution.

"It's almost self-evident that Sunni dissatisfaction is going to increase," said a counterterrorism official.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N27231955.htm

 

[Spectrum]

I saw this movie called "Battle for Algiers" a couple of years ago. It was an old French flick that really put you in the heart of the terrorist networks. It really displaced low loosely federated and decentralized those networks can be. However, if you can take out Bin Laden(the money and face) and Al Zarqawi(the philosophical and strategic mind) behind that organization, you won't stop it but you will definately weaken it.

 

[Spectrum]

I saw this movie called "Battle for Algiers" a couple of years ago. It was an old French flick that really put you in the heart of the terrorist networks. Someone actually made a thread about it here a few weeks ago. It really displayed how loosely federated and decentralized those networks can be. However, if you can take out Bin Laden(the money and face) and Al Zarqawi(the philosophical and strategic mind) behind that organization, you won't stop it but you will definately weaken it.

 

[Gods_Favorite]

.

having apparently been betrayed by an al-Qaeda insider.

Fuckin A.

 

[carlitos]

I saw this movie called "Battle for Algiers" a couple of years ago. It was an old French flick that really put you in the heart of the terrorist networks. Someone actually made a thread about it here a few weeks ago. It really displayed how loosely federated and decentralized those networks can be. However, if you can take out Bin Laden(the money and face) and Al Zarqawi(the philosophical and strategic mind) behind that organization, you won't stop it but you will definately weaken it.

Son,u cannot kill bogeymen. However,they come in handy by providing the perfect alibi to accomplish your objectives.

 

[Spectrum]

Son,u cannot kill bogeymen. However,they come in handy by providing the perfect alibi to accomplish your objectives.

Listen man. We've already had long discussions about all the possible reasons we could be over there. This isn't the thread for it. However, if you want to give further explanation or expound upon your theory on the situation you should start another thread and then provide some insight instead of making a statement that essentially says nothing. I'm very aware of all the different objectives the neo-conversatives have always had for Iraq. However, that is not the point of this article and is actually mutually exclusive from Iraq because Al Quada had NO foothold in Iraq before this war so how could this conflict be "apart of the objectives". Bin Laden and Saddam were in many ways enemies...he despised Saddam as much as he dispises the ruling class in Saudi Arabia. Again, elaborate..a blank statement doesn't say anything or provide any type of analysis.

 

[African Herbsman]

Son,u cannot kill bogeymen. However,they come in handy by providing the perfect alibi to accomplish your objectives.

Exactly

 

[QueEx]

What does that mean AH ???

QueEx

 

[QueEx]

Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

<font size="5"><center>Insurgent Leader Al-Zarqawi Killed in Iraq</font size></center>


Washington Post
By Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 8, 2006; 10:30 AM

BAGHDAD, June 8 --Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the mastermind behind hundreds of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq, was killed early Wednesday by an air strike -northwest of Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Thursday.

Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born high-school dropout whose leadership of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq made him the most wanted man in the country, was killed along with several other people -- including a woman and child -- near the city of Baqubah, the officials said.

U.S. warplanes dropped two 500-pound bombs on a house in which Zarqawi was meeting with other insurgent leaders. A U.S. military spokesman said coalition forces pinpointed Zarqawi's location after weeks of tracking the movements of his spiritual adviser, Sheik Abdul Rahman, who also was killed in the blast.

Following the attack, coalition forces raided 17 locations in and around Baghdad, seizing a "treasure trove" of information about terror operations in the country, U.S. Major Gen. Bill Caldwell told reporters at a military briefing here. Some of the raids focused on targets the United States had been using to monitor Zarqawi's location, Caldwell said.

The stated aim of Zarqawi, 39, in addition to ousting foreign forces from Iraq, was to foment bloody sectarian strife between his fellow Sunni Muslims and members of Iraq's Shiite majority, a prospect that has become a grim reality during the past several months.

His killing is the most significant public triumph for the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq since the 2003 capture of Saddam Hussein, although analysts warned that Zarqawi's death may not stem the tide of insurgency and violence any more than Hussein's capture did. Copying Osama bin Laden's leadership strategy, Zarqawi set up numerous semi-autonomous terrorist cells across Iraq, many of which could continue operating after his death.

Underscoring the threat of continued violence, an explosion ripped through a busy outdoor market in Baghdad just a few hours after Zarqawi's death was announced. The blast, in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood, killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 40, the Associated Press reported.

"Today Zarqawi was defeated," said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, appearing at a news conference with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq. "This is a message to all those who use violence killing and devastation to disrupt life in Iraq to rethink within themselves before it is too late."

Speaking from the Rose Garden several hours later, President Bush praised the U.S.-led coalition for continuing to pursue Zarqawi through "years of near-misses and false leads."

"Through his every action, he sought to defeat America and our coalition partners and turn Iraq into a safe haven from which Al Qaeda could wage its war," Bush said. " . . . Now Zarqawi has met his end, and this violent man will never murder again."

The president said he will meet with his cabinet and national security team at Camp David on Monday to discuss the "way forward" in Iraq. On Tuesday, the group will be joined by Iraq's new ambassador to the United States, Bush said, and will speak by teleconference with Maliki and his recently formed cabinet.

Bush echoed Iraqi and U.S. military leaders in cautioning that Zarqawi's death would not in itself halt the bloodshed in Iraq.

"We can expect the terrorists and insurgents to carry on without him," Bush said in his Rose Garden statement, a somber yet celebratory appearance for which he was joined by several of his top aides, including Vice President Cheney, national security adviser Stephen Hadley and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove. "Yet the ideology of terror has lost one of its most visible and aggressive leaders."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair called Zarqawi's death "a strike against al-Qaeda in Iraq, and therefore a strike against al-Qaeda everywhere." He called Zarqawi the "most vicious prosecutor" of terrorism in Iraq.

It was not immediately clear how many people in addition to Zarqawi were killed in the bombing of the house in the rural village of Hib Hib, about 55 miles northwest of Baghdad. Maliki initially said the toll included Zarqawi and seven others. In Caldwell's briefing, hours later, he indicated that a total of six people were killed -- Zarqawi, Rahman and four others, including the woman and child, whose identities had not yet been determined.

F-16 jets bombed the site twice in a matter of minutes, Caldwell said. Iraqi police were the first on the scene afterward to survey the damage, followed quickly by U.S.-led forces.

Zarqawi's lifeless body was immediately recognizable to those at the house, Caldwell said, and the discovery of tattoos and scars that he was known to have confirmed the identification. Fingerprint tests returned a 100 percent match, and results from DNA testing are expected within the next day or two, Caldwell said.

In the hours leading up to the attack, "we had absolutely no doubts whatsoever that Zarqawi was in the house," Caldwell said, adding that the tips leading to the safe house had come from within Zarqawi's network. "It was 100 percent confirmation. We knew exactly who was there, we knew it was Zarqawi, and that was the deliberate target that we went to get."

Video footage of the site broadcast on CNN showed a vast pile of cement rubble against a backdrop of tall palm trees. Iraqi civilians could be seen picking through the rubble, and finding little more than an occasional piece of charred clothing or a blanket.

At Caldwell's briefing, he played a video of the bombs falling on the house in which Zarqawi was staying. Caldwell also displayed a photograph of Zarqawi's lifeless face.

Maliki's announcement of Zarqawi's death was met by applause among Iraqi reporters assembled in the briefing room. The news, which was confirmed by a Website linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq, was also met by celebratory gunfire in the streets of Baghdad.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which had recently rebranded itself as part of a coalition of insurgent groups called the Mujahideen Al-Shura Council, had claimed responsibility for hundreds of attacks during the past three years, including many of the deadliest suicide bombings and gruesome beheadings of foreign hostages.

The group's focus had recently begun to shift from attacks on military forces to the targeting of civilians, most of them Shiites. In an audio statement last week Zarqawi called for the killing of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most revered Shiite cleric.

U.S. forces had placed a $25 million bounty on Zarqawi, the organization's leader and most public face. He was last seen publicly in a video that aired late April and early May, after widespread reports that U.S. and Iraqi forces had stepped up efforts to capture him.

"Zarqawi was the godfather of sectarian killing and terrorism in Iraq," Khalilzad said. He sought a civil war within Islam and a global war of civilizations. "His organization has been responsible for the death of thousands of civilians in Iraq and abroad."

After the news conference, Maliki told the al-Arabiya television network that the $25 million bounty would be honored. "We will meet our promise," he said without elaborating.

U.S. commanders have consistently portrayed al-Qaeda in Iraq as the country's leading insurgent group and made killing Zarqawi and other top leaders a top priority. But military and political leaders were careful to emphasize that his death will not mean the death of the bloody insurgency.

"We should have no illusions. They will continue to kill," Blair sad during his monthly news conference in London. "There will be fierce attempts, with the formation of the government, with the death of al-Zarqawi to fight back."

After Hussein was captured in an underground shelter near his birthplace of Tikrit there was widespread speculation the insurgency would weaken, but violence has since steadily escalated.

A statement purportedly from al-Qaeda in Iraq posted today on mosques in Ramadi, a violence-wracked city in western Iraq, claimed that the organization would be led by "a new prince" who had been named by Zarqawi to succeed him in the event of his death. "He will be a copy" of Zarqawi, the statement said.

Ambassador Khalilzad called the news "a good day for Iraq," and later added it was "a good day for Americans as well." He urged Iraqis to unite, in the wake of the news, behind Maliki's fledgling government, which took months to form and has struggled to agree on nominees for key ministerial posts.

Minutes after the Zarqawi's death was announced, the long-debated posts of interior minister, defense minister and national security adviser were filled in a giddy session of parliament. Abdul Qadir Muhammed Jassim, a Sunni Arab and former Iraqi army commander, was named defense minister, Jawad al-Bolani, a Shiite, was put in charge of the interior ministry, and Sherwan Alwaeli, a Kurd, was named the country's top official for national security. Bolani, unlike his predecessor, Bayan Jabr, is not affiliated with Shiite militias.

"I call on Iraq's various communities to take responsibility for bringing sectarian violence to an end, and for all Iraqis to unite behind Prime Minister Maliki," Khalilzad said.

Staff writers Michael Abramowitz and Debbi Wilgoren in Washington contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/08/AR2006060800114.html

 

[African Herbsman]

Re: Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

Now the Bush's approval ratings will creep up a little. That's all.

[frame]http://infowars.com/articles/iraq/zarq_jettison.htm[/frame]

 

[Frank Wilson]

Re: Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

Now that Al Zaquari is gone this can give the U.S. time to get things done in Iraq.

However, the U.S. military must be ready for a barrage of suicide bombers, more roadside bombs, more terrorists attacks against Israel, more terrorists attacks in Afghanistan and more taped messages from Osamma Bin Laden.

These insurgents/terrorists are going to find a way to retalliate in the name of Al Zaquari. It is good that he is killed. The U.S. now have to be able to retalliate with sheer force because there will be a short rush of attacks by the insurgents. The U.S. forces can't be worried about some silly Geneva Conference guidelines. They must be ready and able to defend themselves at all costs.

 

[oneofmany]

Re: Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

This Al-Zarqawi situation has gotten ridiculous, so I'm going to wait to see what happens next. If he isn't truly "dead" this time, I'd be speechless. Because then it would be nothing more than a game.

 

[nittie]

Re: Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

If reports that someone in his inner circle turned him in are true the reward money for his death might be used to finance more attacks. It's also possible al-Zarqawi planned this so he could die a martyr and get paid doing it, if either of these scenarios are true it could mean some very bad times for Iraq and the U.S..

 

[Winchesta Heat]

Re: Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

What some people fail to realize though, is the fact that for every al-Zarqawi that gets killed and therefore becomes a martyr, there are 10 more people eager to take his place. Unfortunately this isn't over by any stretch of the imagination...

 

[oneofmany]

Re: Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

^ As bizarre as it may sound, there was a radio host saying the CIA admits they want to create more terrorists. So it may just be a game. One guy down, you wait for the replacemant, go after him and wait for his successor. It's like war and terror is a game, or a business of sorts.

 

[QueEx]

Re: Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

^ As bizarre as it may sound, there was a radio host saying the CIA admits they want to create more terrorists.

Who, specifically, said that ???

QueEx

 

[oneofmany]

Re: Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

Who, specifically, said that ???

QueEx

I was listening to XM radio channel 169 (The Power). I don't listen to that channel much so I don't know who the guy was that time. But in the past, a friend of mine was listening to a stream of Alex Jones and he said the same thing, then quoted which paper or news agency reported the find. It caught me by surprise because this isn't the first time I've heard about this. What's interesting is if you Google this topic, you'll get some interesting results. So I've heard it from XM radio, Alex Jones and Google results.

 

[QueEx]

Re: Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
[WM]http://www.mnf-iraq.com/zarqawi/video/Zaqarwi_Clip.wmv[/WM]

 

[QueEx]

Re: Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

<font size="5"><center>
Al Qaeda has named Abdallah Bin Rashid al Baghdadi, as Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s successor </font size></center>

June 9, 2006, 5:46 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources reveal Western intelligence agencies dealing with terrorists in the region know nothing about the new man. Al Qaeda has already vowed to fight on after Zarqawi’s death in a statement on its web site.

DEBKAfile discloses: Zarqawi’s death leaves Wariya Arbili as the most senior al Qaeda player in Iraq. He is chief of al Qaeda’s second largest affiliate in Iraq, Ansar al-Sunna, an organization which controls large tracts of the country - especially in parts of Kurdistan - with a foothold in Kirkuk and Mosul as well as Tal Afar to the north and sections of the Sunni triangle.

Earlier, DEBKAfile disclosed: Zarqawi’s death leaves Wariya Arbili as the most senior al Qaeda player in Iraq. He is chief of al Qaeda’s second largest affiliate in Iraq, Ansar al-Sunna, an organization which controls large tracts of the country - especially in parts of Kurdistan - with a foothold in Kirkuk and Mosul as well as Tal Afar to the north and sections of the Sunni triangle.

DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources reveal that a quarrel which flared recently between Arbili and Zarqawi led to Osama bin Laden naming a new worldwide operations chief with authority over both. He is an Iraqi from the north, known only by his nom de guerre, Abdulhadi al-Iraqi, and he replaces Abu Farj al-Libi who was captured by Pakistani forces.

Bin Laden’s choice of an indigenous Iraqi ops chief pointed to the high importance the al Qaeda leader attaches to the Iraq warfront for the future of his organization. Abdulhadi now faces the urgent task of bringing order to al Qaeda’s ranks, which are packed with foreign adherents, and Iraqi affiliates to avert a bloody power struggle among commanders.

http://www.debka.com/index.php

 

[QueEx]

Re: Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

[frame]http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HF10Ak03.html[/frame]

 

[QueEx]

Re: Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

<font size="5"><center>How Iraq's ghost of death was cornered</font size>
<font size="4">America clocked up a rare victory in Iraq last week
with the killing of al-Zarqawi.
Can it maintain the momentum? </font size></center>

The Sunday Times (London)
Hala Jaber in Baghdad,
Sarah Baxter in Washington and Michael Smith
June 11, 2006

He was still alive and moaning from an injury to his head when American helicopters and Humvees arrived at the scene. It had taken seven Iraqi men to drag him from the rubble minutes after the American air strike on the farmhouse where he was staying in the village of Hibhib.

They did not know then that the man they were trying to save was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the country's most wanted terrorist.

Ali Abbas, 25, a labourer, had just got home on Wednesday when, shortly after 6pm, the first of two huge blasts shook his house. He was only 300 yards from where the F-16 aircraft dropped two 500lb laser-guided bombs.

“It was so close I thought my uncle’s house next door had been attacked,” he said.

In the calm that followed, Abbas rushed out to help. He found his uncle unharmed, but as they looked across the fence they saw that the neighbouring house on the edge of a date palm grove was a smouldering wreck.

“We ran to it and started to look around for anything, but it had all been reduced to rubble,” he said. “We saw the bodies of two women that had been flung away from the blast. Both were dead. Another body was totally destroyed and in pieces, and then we heard a moan coming from another part of the house.”

They raced to where the sound was coming from. “We found the body of a big man, middle-aged. There was life in him still. It took seven of us to move him from within the rubble and carry him out about 100 metres. He had a black dishdasha [robe]. His hair was longish and his beard soft black. He just moaned over and over again. He had an injury to the back of his head.”

As they dragged the wounded man from the ruins of the house, an ambulance and Iraqi forces turned up, taking the total number of people at the scene to about 14. The men had barely finished placing him in the ambulance when seven US helicopters landed by the house and four Humvees rumbled through the dust.

“They were shouting and screaming and in a very tense and agitated mood,” said Abbas. “They lined us up in a ditch and told us to turn our faces. We thought they were going to execute us. I started reciting koranic verses to myself.” The soldiers then took the wounded man from the back of the ambulance, placing his stretcher on the ground.

“The Americans tore his dishdasha and they kept on asking him through an interpreter, ‘What is your name, what is your name?’,” said Abbas. “They were tearing his dishdasha, not to wrap his head with it as they did later but because they were afraid he might be wearing a suicide belt. They kept shouting, ‘Keep your distance, he may be wearing a suicide belt’.”

He was not. “Under the dishdasha he was wearing only knee-length white undershorts,” said Abbas.

Once the soldiers had established the man was not a threat, they started to kick him in the chest, said Abbas and an Iraqi policeman also there. “They kept kicking him, shouting, ‘What’s your name?’, but the man only moaned and said nothing,” said Abbas.

As the small crowd of Iraqis looked on, the wounded man grew paler and blood oozed from his mouth and nose. It took about a quarter of an hour for him to die from the time when he was removed from the ambulance, Abbas estimated.

Abbas and other witnesses say the Americans then brought out black bodybags before taking the remains of all the dead away in a helicopter. Troops from the Humvees then rounded up the locals.

Abbas said: “A commander spoke to us all together and told us, ‘We know you have nothing to do with this and that you came to the scene to help your neighbours, but these people were terrorists’.

“When [further one-to-one questioning] was over they took us a distance from the house. They placed five detonations around the house and asked us to open our mouths and close our ears. They then blew up what remained of the rubble house.”
The next day Abbas saw pictures of the dead Zarqawi on television, his face swollen, cheeks bruised, eyes closed, with a neatly trimmed beard and moustache. There were streaks of blood beneath his skull. He was sure it was the same man.

<u>The US military’s account differs from the Iraqis in only one important detail. According to a US spokesman, army medics tried to save Zarqawi’s life.

He attempted to roll off the stretcher, I am told, and get away, realising it was the US military,” Major-General William Caldwell, a spokesman for the coalition forces in Iraq, said. “Everybody re-secured him back onto the stretcher, but he died almost immediately.” </u>

THE precise details of the death of the 39-year-old Jordanian leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq will pass into legend, with each faction telling its own version of events. But while DNA testing of his identity continues, nobody doubts that at 6.15pm on Wednesday the Americans got the killer they had sought for so long.

It was quite a hit. As one former Iraqi solider put it last week, it was as if “the ghost of death has disappeared”.

By immersing himself in an orgy of the most extreme and indiscriminate violence after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein three years ago, Zarqawi had become the face of barbarism in Iraq. More than that, his sickening beheadings of western hostages, snuff videos and regular slaughter of ordinary Iraqis had made his name synonymous with evil throughout the world.

It was Zarqawi’s most fervent ambition to unleash civil war in Iraq; to create a bloody anarchy that would destabilise neighbouring states and allow Al-Qaeda’s brand of fundamentalist Islam to spread throughout the region.

For Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador in Iraq, “Zarqawi was the godfather of sectarian killing in Iraq. He led a civil war within Islam and a global war of civilisations.”

In the end it was Iraq that turned on him. In recent weeks he had been squeezed out of one safe haunt after another as ordinary Iraqis grew sick of his killing.

In the area around Hibhib there had been a spike in violence in the days before Zarqawi’s killing. Nine severed heads were discovered in fruit boxes and 21 Shi’ites, many of them young students, had been pulled off a bus and shot.

Rejection by the Iraqi population was a situation that Zarqawi had foreseen. His aim was to destabilise the place before it happened.

Zarqawi's Letter to Bin Laden; Bin Laden's Fear

In a letter to Osama Bin Laden, intercepted in late 2004, he noted that the influence of Al-Qaeda in Iraq could wane once a democratic government was installed in Baghdad. “If we fight them, that will be difficult because there will be a schism between us and the people of the region,” he predicted.
Yet it was Bin Laden, not Zarqawi, who took the lesson to heart. The millionaire Saudi ideologue had reportedly taken an immediate dislike to the swaggering Jordanian street bully when he met him in Afghanistan in the 1990s.



Later Bin Laden came to regard the upstart — who was energetically recruiting Islamic zealots to his banner in Europe as well as the Arab world — as a challenge to his authority and feared that his fomenting civil war in Iraq would damage Al-Qaeda’s authority in the Muslim world.

It was these factors, combined with ruthless tracking by American and British special forces, that proved to be Zarqawi’s undoing.

An Earlier Hit Attempt

FOR more than two years a “combined joint special operations task”, recently renamed Task Force 77, had been hunting down Zarqawi and his Al-Qaeda in Iraq network. It included American troops from Delta Force, a US special operations intelligence unit known as the Activity, US Rangers and, on the British side, an SAS “sabre” squadron and about 60 paratroopers from the Special Forces Support Group.

The search for Zarqawi had started badly. Corporal Ian Plank, 31, a member of the British Special Boat Service, was killed in 2003 when a joint SAS and SBS operation against a house in west Baghdad, where the terrorist was thought to be hiding, went wrong.

“The intel guys underestimated the threat and they stepped into a hornets’ nest,” said a British special operations source.

February 2005 Near Miss

In February last year there was another near-miss. The taskforce had learnt that Zarqawi would be travelling on a particular stretch of road from Falluja to Ramadi.

An ambush was set up, but the target was late and the special forces troops were packing up when Zarqawi drove by. His vehicle then sped through a second roadblock, but soldiers were forbidden to shoot at it because they were unsure of his identity.

With troops in hot pursuit, his driver swerved off the main road and Zarqawi jumped out and ran for his life. He would have been caught, say military insiders, had the video camera on a Predator remote control aircraft not swung out of focus and lost him.

Another Miss

Another close shave came last October when a special forces “A-team” raided an Al-Qaeda safe house in Mosul, northern Iraq, surprising Zarqawi and three of his lieutenants. The team was commanded by Tony Yost, a US special forces master sergeant who gunned down the three subordinates but was killed in the firefight. Zarqawi managed to blow up the house and escape via a tunnel. He was badly wounded and there was even speculation that he had died.

Apparently rattled by these and other near-misses, Zarqawi decided to go public earlier this year, posing on video, Rambo-style, with an American automatic assault rifle in the desert. The pictures were broadcast around the world and, say intelligence analysts, would have enraged Bin Laden who had not found an opportunity to show his face on video since October 2004.

The Final Track - A Tip, A Hit

Shortly after the broadcast, Task Force 77 received a vital tip. It was told — apparently via Jordianian intelligence — that Al-Qaeda had dispatched Sheikh Abdel Rahman, a new “spiritual adviser” to liaise with Zarqawi in Iraq. Armed with this information, Task Force 77 was able to start tracking Rahman as he used a Thuraya satellite phone. This, in turn, enabled them to start building a better picture of Zarqawi’s movements.

“It was a painstaking effort, very focused over about three weeks,” Caldwell said. “There was a lot of information coming in that allowed us to build that puzzle.”



Early last week intelligence pinpointed the isolated safe house surrounded by date palm groves in Hibhib, about 40 miles north of Baghdad. It had been sold only a fortnight ago to a Sunni family for about 70m Iraqi dinars.

A Predator drone tracked Rahman as he drove from Baghdad to Hibhib on Wednesday afternoon, while a reconnaissance team from Task Force 77, including a small number of British SAS soldiers, moved stealthily into the village and installed themselves 100 yards from the house. Quietly, they signalled to American commanders that they had found their target.

The decision was made to call in an airstrike, while troops from the 101st Airborne began sealing off the village in case anything went wrong.

“They came to the conclusion that they could not really go in on the ground without running the risk of letting [Zarqawi] escape,” said Donald Rumsfeld, the American defence secretary. “So they used air power and attacked the dwelling.”

Two F-16s, flying on routine missions nearby, were called in for the task, but one was refuelling in mid-air and could not make it in time.

The commandos of Task Force 77 “painted” the target by using a laser marker and the two 500lb bombs, dropped in quick succession, flattened the house.

Five people, apparently including Rahman and three women, were killed on impact. It was only Zarqawi who was not killed outright.

A Stunning Shock for Al Qaeda ?

NEWS of the Jordanian’s death was quickly relayed to the White House but it was not until early on Thursday that fingerprints confirmed his identity. A jubilant Rumsfeld then hailed Zarqawi’s death as a “stunning shock to the Al-Qaeda system”.

Is it? Having boasted prematurely of “mission accomplished” when Saddam was toppled three years ago, President George W Bush sounded a contrasting note of caution over Zarqawi’s death last week. The American people should expect “tough days ahead” in Iraq, he warned.

Privately British officials also sought to play down the news. “It will probably have less impact than everybody wishes,” said one senior military source.

“The presence of foreign fighters in Iraq is not the issue any more. Sunnis are fighting Sunnis, Shi’ites are fighting Shi’ites and they’re all fighting each other.” In short, Zarqawi’s work was already done.

There is also the question of Bin Laden himself. For all the elation, the death of Zarqawi has been an uncomfortable reminder that the world’s number one terrorist remains at large.
He is believed to be hiding out in the mountains of northwest Pakistan, close to the Afghan border, hidden from unmanned drones by the inhospitable terrain and cloud cover. There have been no recent Zarqawi-style near-misses and he is not likely to be found anytime soon.



One by one, the Al-Qaeda network is being rolled up. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, more than a dozen key figures have been killed or captured, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 hijackings. Hundreds of lesser suspects have also been hunted down disrupting Al Qaeda cells across a wide area.

“Al-Qaeda is an organisation like the mafia,” said Peter Galbraith, a former US ambassador and senior fellow of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, speaking from Irbil in northern Iraq.

“No doubt in Iraq it has produced more suicide bombers and terrorists than have been eliminated, but Al-Qaeda has been diminished as the most effective and imaginative terrorist organisation.”

Yet the durability of the global Al-Qaeda hydra was demonstrated only last week when Islamic groups in Somalia, suspected of harbouring Al-Qaeda terrorists, defeated warlords who had been financed and supported by the United States. The Islamist groups seized control of the capital, providing a new haven for Al-Qaeda supporters.

In Iraq itself new leaders are already emerging to take Zarqawi’s place, even if they are unlikely to have his notorious impact.

Caldwell, the US military spokesman in Baghdad, predicted that Zarqawi’s role was likely to be filled by an Al-Qaeda operative known as Abu Ayyub Masri who met Zarqawi at a training camp in Afghanistan in 2001 or 2002.

Masri is Egyptian-born, however, and sources close to the insurgents say Zarqawi’s place will go to an Iraqi commander.

The most likely successor is a man who has used the pseudonym Abu Abdul Raham al-Iraqi. He has appeared in past statements from Zarqawi’s group as the “deputy emir”. His name was on a statement that it issued on Thursday confirming Zarqawi’s death and vowing to continue on his path of jihad, or holy war.

“It is highly likely that the new head of Al-Qaeda in the land of two rivers [Iraq] will be Abu Abdul Rahman al-Iraqi,” a member of one of the groups within the Mujaheddin Shoura — an umbrella body composed of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other militant groups — told The Sunday Times.

“For political reasons and to prevent anyone in the future from saying that the leader is a non-Iraqi, it is more likely that they will go for an Iraqi commander this time.

“There is no shortage of leaders to lead Al-Qaeda and the difficulty will not be to find a replacement. The difficulty will be who to choose from the list of men that can fill his command.

“The death of Zarqawi will not cease attacks or operations in Iraq. On the contrary, it will boost the insurgents in different ways. The insurgency or resistance in Iraq against the occupation is not dependent on one man.”

Despite such bombast, the new Iraqi government was last week in bullish mood. “We will get the next leader, too, whoever it is,” said Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2220222_1,00.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

<font size="5"><center>A Jordanian Sting Operation
Yielded the Vital Lead to Hit Zarqawi</font size></center>

DEBKAFile
June 10, 2006, 12:45 PM (GMT+02:00)

The final breakthrough in the long pursuit of the most blood-stained terrorist of them all, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, came from Jordan.

The source was Ziyad Halaf al Karbouli, also known as Abu Hufeiza, one of the lowlifes Zarqawi employed to attack and rob the convoys plying Baghdad’s main supply route across the Jordanian border and murdering their Iraqi or Jordanian drivers. Foreigners riding along were taken hostage. DEBKA-Net-Weekly reveals that he was picked up – not by chance, but in consequence of a well-laid Jordanian sting operation set up and executed by King Abdullah’s old unit, The Riders of Justice of Jordan’s 71st Commando Brigade - and on his orders.

Jordanian intelligence had a score to settle with Zarqawi’s highway robber-in-chief. Last September, he kidnapped a Palestinian called Khaled Da Siko, who was an important Jordanian undercover agent, assigned with penetrating Zarqawi’s following. The abduction took place in Ruthba in western Iraq. When Abu Hufeiza asked Zarqawi what to do with his captive, he was told to execute him forthwith, which he did.

From that moment, Jordanian intelligence never let up on their efforts to lay hands on the kidnapper to exact revenge.

The Riders of Justice infiltrated western Iraq at the beginning of 2006 and scoured al Qaim, Ruthba, Falujja and Ramadi for the wanted man. At some point, they realized that even if they overpowered his bodyguards and killed him, they would never make it back to Jordan past Zarqawi’s killers. It had become necessary to go for the boss, who was in any case under sentence of death in the kingdom.

In early April therefore, a decision was taken in Amman to lure Abu Hufeiza into entering the kingdom in defiance of Zarqawi’s prohibition. Double agents held out an offer of a Jordanian base for al Qaeda, plus information on ways to lay hands on the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing through the funding channel between Jordan and Iraq.

Abu Hufeiza swallowed the bait. He was dazzled enough to picture himself handing the rich booty over to Abu Zarqawi and being promoted to his Number Two in al Qaeda’s Iraq hierarchy by his grateful master.

The moment he and his bodyguards set foot on Jordanian soil, all got up as Iraqi businessmen on a shopping trip, the trap snapped shut; they were surrounded by the Riders of Justice and hauled to Amman for questioning.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s counter-terror sources report that Abu Hufeiza held nothing back from his Jordanian interrogators. He was the source of the first real lead to Zarqawi’s location to be made available to the US command and intelligence in Iraq.

Abu Hufeiza also gave away certain members of the Butcher of Baghdad’s command group. Here is a summary of the data the Jordanians extracted from him:

The name of al Qaeda chief’s chief of operations, Yassin Harabi – an Iraqi Sunni codenamed Abu Obeida. Going down the chain of command, he identified Yunas Ramlawi, a Palestinian from the West Bank town of Ramallah, and Muhammad Majid, a Saudi Arabian known as Abu Hamza.​

The descriptions he gave the Jordanians were good enough for identikit portraits and betrayed their hideouts, how they stayed in touch with Zarqawi and their movements.

This data haul Jordanian intelligence whipped across to Washington where analysts went to work on it and rushed their findings to American headquarters in Baghdad.

All of a sudden, the US military in Baghdad had an intelligence bonanza instead of chance identities of the odd Zarqawi adherent which was all they had to work with before. From Abu Hufeiza Jordanian intelligence had extracted the first clue to the location of the safe house near Baquba, where Zarqawi was actually in conference with his senior commanders. The next link in the chain came from a senior Zarqawi commander in Iraq, who fell into American hands and was persuaded to part with the final steps that brought two US 500-pound bombs crashing down on Zarqawi’s last address.

At first, some American officers queried these offerings as disinformation designed to trip them up. But when US commander General George W. Casey and American ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad ordered the input examined and cross-referenced, it proved solid enough for direct action.

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1173

 

[QueEx]

Re: Al-Zarqawi - NOW WHAT ?

<font size="5"><center>Al-Zarqawi's cell phone reportedly yields surprises</font size></center>

CNN/Asociated Press
Monday, July 3, 2006
Posted: 7:38 a.m. EDT (11:38 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had the phone numbers of senior Iraqi officials stored in his cell phone, according to an Iraqi legislator.

Waiel Abdul-Latif, a member of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's party, said Monday that authorities found the numbers after al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed in a U.S. air strike on June 7.

Abdul-Latif did not give names of the officials. But he said they included ministry employees and members of parliament.

He called for an investigation, saying Iraqis "cannot have one hand with the government and another with the terrorists."


Zarqawi's wife Says US and Al Qaeda Cut Deal Over Zarqawi

Meanwhile, al-Zarqawi's wife told an Italian newspaper that al Qaeda leaders sold him out to the United States in exchange for a promise to let up in the search for Osama bin Laden.

The woman, identified by La Repubblica as al-Zarqawi's first wife, said al Qaeda's top leadership reached a deal with U.S. intelligence because al Zarqawi had become too powerful.

She claimed Sunni tribes and Jordanian secret services mediated the deal.

"My husband has been sold to the Americans," the woman said in an interview published Sunday. "He had become too powerful, too troublesome."

She was identified only as "Um Mohammed," which means "mother of Mohammed" and would be a nickname, not her full name.

The Rome-based newspaper said the interview was conducted in Geneva and described her as Jordanian and about 40 years old.

In Jordan, Al-Zarqawi's eldest brother, Sayel al-Khalayleh, said the family had not been aware of the woman's whereabouts for about two years.

Iraq's national security adviser said Sunday that al-Zarqawi had been buried in a "secret location" in Baghdad despite his family's demand that the body be returned to his native Jordan.

Mouwafak al-Rubaie would not say when the Jordanian-born militant was buried, or give any specifics on the location of the grave.

The U.S. military confirmed the burial but declined to give details.

"The remains of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi were turned over to the appropriate government of Iraq officials and buried in accordance with Muslim customs and traditions," the military said in an e-mailed statement. "Anything further than that would be addressed by the Iraqi government."

Al-Zarqawi's brother demanded that his body be transferred to Jordan, and accused the United States of lying.

"Bush took his body to the United States," al-Khalayleh told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his home in the Jordanian city of Zarqa.

"Even if he is buried in Iraq, we will continue to ask for the body to be transferred and buried in Jordan," he said. "He should be buried in his own country."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/03/zarqawi.ap/index.html