None Too Soon
Is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi dead? Maybe:
US authorities are looking into whether Al Qaeda’s Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been killed in a gunfight in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, an US official says.
Then again, US officials aren’t ready to pop any corks:
White House spokesman Trent Duffy told Agence France-Presse in Beijing, as President George W Bush was wrapping up a trip to China, that the story was ‘highly unlikely, not credible.’
Dear or alive, however, we do have this small bit of good news:
Iraq’s most-wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been disowned by members of his family in Jordan who have pledged to “sever links with him until doomsday” and proclaimed their loyalty to Jordan’s king, Abdullah II.
The statement, which also removed “protection” from Zarqawi, came amid further protests in Jordan at the suicide bombings at three hotels on November 9 in Amman , the capital, that killed 59 people, including revellers at a wedding party.
One thing’s for sure: Zarqawi’s Jordanian fundraising efforts have taken a hit.
And another thing. People may pick on President Bush for not being the shiniest penny in the roll, but we can be thankful our enemies have even less gloss. In other words, what the hell was Zarqawi thinking when he attacked Jordan?
biggest question is why islamofascist websites would claim he’s dead.
it should hurt their cause a little. recruiting and all. it’s possible it’s just disinformation. or saied zarqawi could just be trying to manufacture a semblance of his own death in an effort to skip the country.
but his is all obvious. the important question is: who posted it? what evidence/motivation did he have?
Is Abu dead?…
There is at least one report he is. Hmmm.
Update: Then there is this, Eight high-ranking al Qaeda leaders kill themselves.
Was Terrorist Bigwig Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Killed?
It’s deja vu all over again with yet another announcement that a top Al-Qaeda terrorist — a REALLY top Al-Qaeda terrorist this t…
24 Hours Later: Still No Confirmation
24 hours after the initial Jerusalem Post article indicated that Zarqawi may have been among those killed in a raid on a compound near Mosul, we still have no confirmation. But we do have more details on the raid and some interesting media observatio…
So, Zarqawi and Cindy Sheehan have more in common now… They were both disowned by members of their families.
Match made in hell. perfect.
Was Terrorist Bigwig Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Killed? (UPDATED)
It’s deja vu all over again with yet another announcement that a top Al-Qaeda terrorist — a REALLY top Al-Qaeda terrorist this t…
He’s not dead. He’s in my basement.
“What the hell was Zarqawi thinking when he attacked Jordan?”
…He was probably thinking that he only needs less than 1% of the worlds Muslim population to conduct a very successful insurgency / terror campaign in Iraq and beyond. Unfortunately, that 1% (actually closer to 5%) is not put off by an attack that kills other Muslims. However these individuals choose to justify these killings in their minds, the reality of the situation is that by making international news, Zarqawi has successfully advertised his organization’s abilities. The type of psyche / person who will strap a bomb to his/her body wants to know that it will kill and get attention. Zarqawi has shown he can provide both.
Hey Stephen,
There’s a new report out now, from the AP, picked up by the Jerusalem Post, that the FM of Iraq said that Zarqawi was believed to have been killed in Mosul.
Still a rumor but a louder one.
I wonder if the Zarqawi clansfolk are distancing themselves from their local hero to avoid “Los Pepes” style death squads that I’m still waiting for as a reaction to his terror campaign.
Remember what happened in Mark Bowden’s book, “Killing Pablo”? The death squads started killing the extended families, maids, drivers, etc. of Pablo’s syndicate. Distastful, but effective.
‘what the hell was Zarqawi thinking when he attacked Jordan?’
All apostates must die and burn in Hell?
This was truly a stupid move. While it’s true that he only needs a small percentage of Moslems to conduct his terrorism, he needs the complicity, the silence and blind eyes of a much larger percentage to escape notice and capture of himself and his minions. He’s lost that, at least in Jordan. Furthermore, there are other terrorists who don’t agree with his approach, as it generates too much blowback; they may very well kill him or give information to those who’ll do the job for them.
What ever happened to crazy? Can’t anyone just be crazy anymore? – Chris Rock
Ive said it before and I’ll say it again: Those who try to assign logic to terrorism do so in error.
I doubt if we got him, but we did get more high level big shots and who knows how much information from laptops and stuff. It will be 2-3 weeks before dna tests will be completed and by then several more cells will have been rolled up.
I think he was thinking that Jordanians wouldn’t have more balls than the Spainards.
Happily, he was wrong.
As a Jordanian, he must know that Abdullah II is a lineal-descendant of the Prophet Mohammad; and that the Hashemites, not the Sauds, were the ancient hereditary protectors of the Holy Places of Mecca and Medina. The Sauds are from the eastern-side of the now-Saudi Arabia at Rihyad and only became the protectors of the Holy Places since WW1.
No mystery what AZ was after if you see AQ etc’s activities as a mob-style power grab on a global scale rather than the principled stand against western imperialism that terrorists wear as a convenient Noh mask.
This tends to happen with every armed, clandestine, unaccountable organization from the Mafia to the Yakuza; a bunch of angry guys coalesce around some possibly legitimate grievance against the powers that be, enact satisfying vigilante justice, and then start looking for other things to be angry about – nature abhors a vacuum after all…