June 8, 2006

Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who led Al-Qaeda operations in Iraq, was killed yesterday in an air strike north of Baghdad.

Two U.S. Air Force F-16 fighters attacked a safe house near the town of Baqubah yesterday, killing Zarqawi, his spiritual adviser, Sheik Abdul Rahman, and four other persons, Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell told reporters at a press briefing. The F-16s dropped two 500-pound bombs on the building. Zarqawi was dead when Iraqi police and U.S. military forces arrived on the scene, Caldwell said.

The successful operation "was the product of painstaking intelligence-gathering from local sources and within Zarqawi's network," Caldwell said.

Intelligence sources believe that Zarqawi came to Iraq sometime in 2002, Caldwell said, noting he was a key target of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts in Iraq since December 2003. Caldwell said intelligence agents had obtained information about Rahman's comings and goings as well as interactions with Zarqawi.

Military officials were convinced that Zarqawi and Rahman were at the safe house before commencing the air strike, Caldwell said.

Caldwell said Zarqawi was known to have masterminded myriad attacks against American, coalition and Iraqi security forces in Iraq. He was also responsible for bombings and other attacks that have killed hundreds of innocent Iraqi citizens, the general said.

Zarqawi's ardent desire, Caldwell said, was to incite a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites that would bring down the new democratic Iraqi government. However, "the elimination of Zarqawi has dealt a serious blow to al-Qaeda in Iraq," Caldwell said.

Fingerprinting provided a positive identification of Zarqawi's body, Caldwell, the spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, said. Testing results from samples of Zarqawi's DNA are pending, he said.

U.S. President George W. Bush says Zarqawi's death is a remarkable achievement for Coalition and Iraqi forces."Zarqawi's death is a severe blow to al-Qaeda," Bush said. "It is a victory in the global war on terror, and it is an opportunity for Iraq's new government to turn the tide of this struggle."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called Zarqawi's death enormously important, although he says it will not mean an end to violence in Iraq. Rumsfeld said in the last several years, no single person in the world has had the blood of more innocent men, women and children on his hands.

"He personified the dark, sadistic and evil vision of beheadings, suicide bombings, indiscriminate killings, a behavior pattern that has been rejected by the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people," said Rumsfeld.

Zarqawi personally beheaded American hostages and other civilians in Iraq. He also was the mastermind behind the destruction of the United Nations' headquarters in Baghdad.

Zarqawi was wanted in connection with the assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan and for the bombing of three hotels in Amman that killed 60 people.

The Al-Qaeda terrorist group was founded by Osama bin Laden and carried out the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon which killed 2,986 people in 2001.

Other terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda include:

• Bombings in Yemen in December 1992 which killed two

• The 1993 World Trade Center bombing which killed six and injured over 1,000

• A 1995 bombing of a U.S. military facility in Riyadh in November 1995, which killed seven

• The 1996 Khobar Towers bombing which killed 19 American military personnel and one Saudi citizen in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

• The August 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 225 people and injured 4,000 others

• The October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen which killed 17 sailors and injured 39

• The El Ghriba synagogue bombing Tunisia 0n April 11, 2002 which killed 21 people

• The kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in January 2002

• The October 6, 2002 bombing of the French oil tanker Limburg, near Yemen, which killed one and injured 12.

• The assassination of US diplomat Laurence Foley in Jordan in October 2002

• A car bombing in Kenya in November 2002 which killed 13 people and injuring 80

• The Riyadh bombings on May 12, 2003 in Saudi Arabia which killed 26 people injured over 160

• The Istanbul synagogue bombings in Turkey, in 2003, which killed 27 people and wounded more than 300 others

• The March 11, 2004 attacks on commuter trains in Madrid which killed 191 people and injured 1,460

• The July 7, 2005 London bombings, a series of attacks against mass transit in London which killed 52 people and injured 700

• The July 23, 2005 Sharm el-Sheikh attacks in Egypt which killed 90 people and wounded over 150.

• The November 9, 2005 Amman, Jordan attacks in which three simultaneous bombings occurred at American owned hotels in Amman. The blast killed at least 57 people and injured 120 people. Most of the injured and killed were Muslims attending a wedding at the Radisson Hotel.

In May 2004, Zarqawi videotaped himself personally beheading American Nick Berg, a civilian who had been abducted and taken hostage in Iraq weeks earlier. He has twice been convicted in absentia and sentenced to death by Jordan.