[Marxism] Zarqawi, alive when found, was deliberately killed by US bombs

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Zarqawi was alive when US forces arrived at bomb scene

Julian Borger in Washington and Michael Howard in Irbil
Saturday June 10, 2006
The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>


Abu Musab al-Zarqawi initially survived the US air strike on his
al-Qaida safe house and tried to escape from US special forces as they
arrived on the scene, it emerged yesterday. The chief US military
spokesman in Baghdad was forced to retract initial reports that Zarqawi
had been killed by two 500lb bombs dropped on the house where he was
holding a meeting.

"We were not aware yesterday that in fact Zarqawi was alive when US
forces arrived on the site," Major General William Caldwell told Fox
News. He said Iraqi police, who were the first to arrive, had put him on
a stretcher. "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." Zarqawi was also reported
to have mumbled something brief and unintelligible before dying. An
autopsy was under way yesterday.

Zarqawi was tracked down to a house near the town of Baquba with the
help of a mole inside his organisation, an Iraqi affiliate of Osama Bin
Laden's al-Qaida. The mole had been cultivated by Jordanian intelligence
according to Jordanian officials quoted in the US press and intelligence
experts in Washington. "Jordanian intelligence flooded the country with
agents as far back as last November, and they were able to penetrate
al-Zarqawi's organisation," Vincent Cannistraro, a former head of CIA
counter-terrorist operations, said.

US intelligence was also monitoring Zarqawi's spiritual adviser, Sheikh
Abd al-Rahman, with a drone aircraft, and struck when the two met at the
house.

A senior Iraqi intelligence official said Zarqawi had been betrayed by
Iraqi members of his organisation who had been alienated by his
indiscriminate targeting of their countrymen.

Donald Rumsfeld said that a decision was taken to bomb the house to
eliminate any chance Zarqawi might escape, but special forces had taken
up positions in a palm grove around the house and were first on the
scene.



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