[LINK] CNN
Terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted man in Iraq, was killed in a coalition airstrike near Baquba, jubilant U.S. and Iraqi authorities announced Thursday.
Positive ID via fingerprints, face, and known scars.
Michelle Milkin is updating the story this AM at hotair.com (with photos).
Great news! Results beat the heck out of rhetoric!
Will this be a turning point? al Qaeda has already issued a statement saying it will continue. BUT ... it doesn't name a new figurehead.
Tips by Iraqis have gone WAY UP. Maybe they're ready to root out the terrorists and insurgents.
Like President Bush said in his Memorial Day radio address:
"The new government in Iraq is also a defeat for the terrorists, who fought the arrival of a free and democratic Iraq with all the hateful power they could muster. Now, a day that they feared has arrived. The terrorists can kill the innocent, but they cannot stop the advance of freedom. We can expect the terrorists to continue bombing and killing, but something fundamental has changed: The terrorists are now fighting a free and constitutional government. They are at war with the people of Iraq. The Iraqi people and their new leaders are determined to defeat this enemy, and so is the United States of America."
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The 3-year-old insurgency has "lost its leader," Gen. George Casey, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, told reporters.
Details are still emerging of the operation against the self-proclaimed leader of al Qaeda in Iraq who pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden. (Watch how al-Zarqawi's body was identified -- 2:28)
But the killing of al-Zarqawi, who had a $25 million bounty on his head, is a major coup for the embattled coalition forces.
"Today is a good day," U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad told a news conference soon after cheers and applause broke out when Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced: "Zarqawi has been killed."
Khalilzad called al-Zarqawi "the godfather of sectarian killing and terror in Iraq" -- and said the death "marks a great success for Iraq and the global war on terror."
"His organization has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians in Iraq and abroad."
The 39-year-old Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi was accused of terrorist links before the Iraq war and soon led the insurgency after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. (Watch how al-Zarqawi murdered his way to the most-wanted list -- 2:50)
Multiple attempts have been made to capture or kill him and he was held briefly by Iraqi security forces in 2004 but was released because no one knew who he was.
In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair called al-Zarqawi's death "a very important moment in Iraq. A blow for al Qaeda in Iraq is a blow for al Qaeda everywhere."
Insider tips
Casey said al-Zarqawi and a key lieutenant, spiritual adviser Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman, were at an isolated safe house outside Baquba at 6:15 p.m. (10:15 a.m. ET) on Wednesday.
"Tips and intelligence from Iraqi senior leaders from his network led forces to al-Zarqawi and some of his associates who were conducting a meeting approximately eight kilometers north of Baquba when the airstrike was launched," he said.
Baquba is a volatile area northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province, a mixed Shiite-Sunni jurisdiction. There have been many roadside bombings and shootings throughout the province and within the week, severed heads were found in fruit boxes there.
"Iraqi police were first on the scene after the air strike, and elements of Multi-National Division North, arrived shortly thereafter," Casey said. "We have been able to identify al-Zarqawi by fingerprint verification, facial recognition and known scars."
In addition to Zarqawi and the spiritual adviser, seven others died in the attack.
Casey wouldn't provide many details about the action but said that "all of these operations are the result of a long, painstaking process where tips and intelligence are received, processed and checked out."
This particular operation had been in the works for a couple of weeks, leading to the location of the house in a wooded area and the meeting, he said.
Al-Maliki indicated that the strike on al-Zarqawi was the "result of cooperation" with ordinary Iraqis, saying that authorities many times have asked the citizenry to provide information.
"This is a message to all those who take violence as a path."
Khalilzad said the demise of al-Zarqawi won't end the violence in Iraq, but it is "an important step in the right direction."
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