Zarqawi: Dead or Alive?
Kim Sengupta
Independent, UK
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Baghdad (Iraq):
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted man in the Middle East, may have been killed in a firefight in Iraq, according to the country's Foreign Minister. Hoshyar Zebari said yesterday that urgent DNA tests were being carried out on the bodies of several people who died when US and Iraqi forces stormed a house in the northern city of Mosul.The US administration, which had offered a $25m (£15m) reward for the leader of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, played down the reports. But Mr Zebari, during a visit to Moscow, said: "American and Iraqi forces are investigating the possibility that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's corpse is among the bodies of some terrorists who died in the special military operation in Mosul."
State television in Jordan, where 59 people died in a series of hotel bombings for which Zarqawi's group has claimed responsibility, carried the alleged death as "urgent news" in a scrolling newsbar at the bottom of the screen, suggesting that Jordanian officials believe the report to be credible.
Eight fighters, supposedly senior members of the group al-Qa'ida in Iraq, died after special forces and other soldiers surrounded a house following a surveillance operation. Four of them were killed during a three-hour assault on the two-storey building. The rest blew themselves up. One of the dead was a woman with the words "suicide bomber" marked on her chest.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Iraq, said: "I do not believe that we got him. But his days are numbered. We're closer to that goal but unfortunately we didn't get him in Mosul." In Washington, Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, added that reports of Zarqawi's death were "highly unlikely and not credible".
Nov 222, 2005
Kim Sengupta Independent, UK
_____________
Baghdad (Iraq):
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted man in the Middle East, may have been killed in a firefight in Iraq, according to the country's Foreign Minister. Hoshyar Zebari said yesterday that urgent DNA tests were being carried out on the bodies of several people who died when US and Iraqi forces stormed a house in the northern city of Mosul.The US administration, which had offered a $25m (£15m) reward for the leader of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, played down the reports. But Mr Zebari, during a visit to Moscow, said: "American and Iraqi forces are investigating the possibility that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's corpse is among the bodies of some terrorists who died in the special military operation in Mosul."
State television in Jordan, where 59 people died in a series of hotel bombings for which Zarqawi's group has claimed responsibility, carried the alleged death as "urgent news" in a scrolling newsbar at the bottom of the screen, suggesting that Jordanian officials believe the report to be credible.
Eight fighters, supposedly senior members of the group al-Qa'ida in Iraq, died after special forces and other soldiers surrounded a house following a surveillance operation. Four of them were killed during a three-hour assault on the two-storey building. The rest blew themselves up. One of the dead was a woman with the words "suicide bomber" marked on her chest.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Iraq, said: "I do not believe that we got him. But his days are numbered. We're closer to that goal but unfortunately we didn't get him in Mosul." In Washington, Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, added that reports of Zarqawi's death were "highly unlikely and not credible".
Nov 222, 2005
