(AFP)
24 May 2005
WASHINGTON - US officials reacted cautiously on Tuesday to an Internet claim that Iraq’s most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been wounded and said they could not immediately verify the authenticity of a statement posted on a militant web site.
“There are a lot of these things that have happened in the past that have not panned out,” a US official said. “All I can say at this point is I would approach it a little cautiously.”
A senior US military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said it was not known whether the Internet posting was authentic.
“Islamic nation, brothers in unity, we pray God that our sheikh, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, recover from the wounds he has sustained,” said the statement issued in the name of the “information department” of Zarqawi’s militant organisation.
“May God heal you, the most dear of the mujahedeen (Islamic fighters). May God give you strength,” said the Al Qaeda Organisation in the Land of Two Rivers, without giving details on the extent of Zarqawi’s injuries or how they were inflicted.
The US officials said they knew of no other information, independent of the Internet claim, that Zarqawi had been wounded.
The US military, however, investigated reports earlier this month that Zarqawi visited a hospital in Ramadi in late April amid rumors he was ill or wounded.
US forces launched a major offensive in western Iraq near the Syrian border in early May targeting forces loyal to Zarqawi. Although more than 125 insurgents were reported killed in the fighting, the bulk of the forces was believed to have slipped away.
US military officials have said Zarqawi narrowly escaped capture February 20 in a US raid between the cities of Hit and Haditha near the Euphrates River. A laptop was recovered that reportedly contained Zarqawi’s medical records.
Zarqawi is Iraq’s most wanted man with a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head. His group has claimed a string of devastating attacks, assassinations and kidnappings since Saddam Hussein’s ouster by US-led forces in April 2003.