Baghdad: Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, Al Qaida's leader in Iraq who led a bloody campaign of suicide bombings and kidnappings, has been killed in an air strike, US and Iraqi officials said yesterday.
His identity was confirmed by fingerprints and a first-hand look at his face a major victory in the US-led war in Iraq and the broader war on terror.
Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki said Al Zarqawi was killed along with seven aides, including two women, on Wednesday evening in a remote area 50km northeast of Baghdad in the volatile province of Diyala, near the provincial capital of Baquba.
Loud applause broke out as Al Maliki, flanked by US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and US Gen George Casey, told a news conference in Baghdad that "Al Zarqawi was eliminated."
Casey said Al Zarqawi's spiritual adviser Shaikh Abdul Rahman also was killed.
The death of Iraq's most-wanted militant, who was responsible for the majority of Iraq's worst atrocities, was welcome news for Iraqi and US-led forces after several recent setbacks, but President Bush and US military leaders acknowledged it was unlikely to stop the unrelenting violence in the country.
The news came amid more attacks, with two bombs striking a market and a police patrol in Baghdad, killing at least 19 people and wounding more than 40.
The announcement was a much-needed boost to the Shiite prime minister, whose nearly three week old government of national unity has been beleaguered by rampant sectarian violence and political infighting.
Approval
Al Maliki also moved ahead with his efforts to promote national reconciliation among Iraq's fractured ethnic and sectarian groups, gaining parliamentary approval for new ministers of defence, interior and national security and ending a three-week stalemate.
The new ministers were sworn in a day after he began a massive prisoner release aimed at appeasing Sunni Arabs and dampening support for the Sunni-led insurgency.
Casey, the top US commander in Iraq, said an American air strike hit "an identified, isolated safe house."
He said tips and intelligence from senior leaders from Al Zarqawi's network led US forces to Al Zarqawi as he was meeting some of his associates. Casey also said Iraqi police were first on the scene after the air strike.
US military spokesman Maj Gen William Caldwell showed a picture of Al Zarqawi after he was killed and 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 Al Zarqawi was in the house," Caldwell said.
Caldwell also said US and Iraqi troops carried out 17 raids around Baghdad following Al Zarqawi's killing.
Al Qaida in Iraq confirmed Al Zarqawi's death and vowed to continue its "holy war," according to a statement posted on a Web site.
Iraqi police in Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City brandished their guns, firing in the air and chanting to show their elation over the news.
The announcement about Al Zarqawi's death came six days after he issued an audiotape on the internet, railing against Shiites in Iraq and saying militias were raping women and killing Sunnis and the community must fight back.
In Washington, President George W. Bush said that the killing of Al Zarqawi in Iraq was "a severe blow" to the Al Qaida terrorist network and a decisive victory in the US-led war against terrorism.
"Now Zarqawi has met his end, and this violent man will never murder again," Bush said as he announced from the White House the US airstrike against the man considered the most dangerous terrorist plotter in Iraq.
Al Zarqawi coordinated a loose coalition of militants numbering at least in the hundreds. Osama bin Laden called him the "emir," or prince, of Al Qaida in Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday called him a terrorist mastermind.
"I think arguably over the past several years no single person on this planet has had the blood of more innocent men, women and children on his hands," Rumsfeld said at a meeting of NATO ministers in Brussels.
Rumsfeld said he found it appropriate that Al Zarqawi, who had tried to thwart Iraqi elections and formation of a new government, "failed on the very day that the elected officials of that country were able to finalise their ministry."
