Washington: Abu Musab Al Zarqawi was alive and made a move to escape when US troops reached the leader of Al Qaida in Iraq, mortally wounded in an American bombing raid, a US general said on Friday.
The attack that killed Al Zarqawi and his spiritual adviser, Shaikh Abdul Rahman, yielded valuable information for several subsequent raids in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the spokesman for the US military in Baghdad, told Fox News.
"We were not aware yesterday that in fact, Zarqawi was alive when US forces arrived on the site," Caldwell said.
Iraqi police first reached the bombed safe house in a village north of Baghdad and put Zarqawi on a stretcher, Caldwell said. US ground forces then arrived and identified Al Zarqawi, who died shortly afterward.
"He was conscious initially, according to the US forces that physically saw him. He obviously had some kind of visual recognition of who they were because he attempted to roll off the stretcher, as I am told, and get away, realising it was US military," Caldwell said.
There were six people in house at the time of the attack, three women and three men, Caldwell said at a Pentagon briefing later on Friday. There were no survivors, he said.
Al Zarqawi gave up no information before he died, but the attack has yielded unprecedented intelligence about his network, Caldwell said.
He said there were 17 raids in Iraq shortly after the attack, some made possible by intelligence gained in it. The intelligence also helped support some of an additional 39 raids Thursday night.
In the second night of raids, Caldwell said 39 raids were carried out and that "clearly we picked up things like memory sticks, some hard drives" that would allow American forces to begin dismantling Al Zarqawi's Al Qaida in Iraq. He said it was also helping them understand where the group's weapons and financing were coming from.from searches following the death of Al Zarqawi.
But Caldwell also told the British Broadcasting Corp. that he did not think the terrorist organization had been decapitated.
"We have no question we dealt it a severe blow, but it can regenerate," he told the BBC. "There are still going to be some difficult times."
Fearing reprisals, Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki imposed a driving ban in Baghdad and in Diyala, fearing insurgents will seek to avenge his death.
