"When Sunni Gets Blue...."
Posted on 06/09/2006 5:54:29 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi could barely speak, but he struggled and tried to get away from American soldiers as he lay dying on a stretcher in the ruins of his hideout.
The U.S. forces recognized his face, and knew they had the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.
Initially, the U.S. military had said al-Zarqawi was killed outright. But Friday new details emerged of his final moments.
For three years, al-Zarqawi orchestrated horrific acts of violence guided by his extremist vision of jihad, or holy war — first against the U.S. soldiers he considered occupiers of Arab lands, then against the Shiites he considered infidels.
On Wednesday, the U.S. military tracked him to a house northwest of Baghdad, and blew it up with two 500-pound bombs.
Al-Zarqawi somehow managed to survive the impact of the bombs, weapons so powerful they tore a huge crater in the date palm forest where the house was nestled just outside the town of Baqouba.
Iraqi police reached the scene first, and found the 39-year-old al-Zarqawi alive.
"He mumbled something, but it was indistinguishable and it was very short," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said Friday of the Jordanian-born terrorist's last words.
Iraqi police pulled him from the flattened home and placed him on a makeshift stretcher. U.S. troops arrived, saw that al-Zarqawi was conscious, and tried to provide medical treatment, the spokesman said.
"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, realizing it was the U.S. military," Caldwell told Pentagon reporters via videoconference from Baghdad.
Al-Zarqawi "attempted to, sort of, turn away off the stretcher," he said. "Everybody re-secured him back onto the stretcher, but he died almost immediately thereafter from the wounds he'd received from this airstrike."
So much blood covered al-Zarqawi's body that U.S. forces cleaned him up before taking photographs. "Despite the fact that this person actually had no regard for human life, we were not going to treat him in the same manner," Caldwell said.
The airstrike killed two other men and three women who were in the house, but only al-Zarqawi and his spiritual adviser have been positively identified, he said.
Caldwell also said experts told him it is not unheard of for people to survive a blast of that magnitude.
"There are cases when people, in fact, can survive even an attack like that on a building structure. Obviously, the other five in the building did not, but he did for some reason," Caldwell said.
He said he did not know if al-Zarqawi was inside or outside the house when the bombs struck.
"Well, what we had found, as with anything, first reports are not always fully accurate as we continue the debriefings. But we were not aware yesterday that, in fact, Zarqawi was alive when U.S. forces arrived on the site," Caldwell said.
His recounting of the aftermath of the airstrike could not be independently verified. The Iraqi government confirmed only that Iraqi forces were first on the scene, followed by the Americans.
An aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said he saw Caldwell's news briefing but could neither confirm nor deny that al-Zarqawi briefly survived the blast.
"Well, I think it's clear: The Americans said he was seriously wounded and he died," the aide said.
I keep having Monty Python flashbacks.
"I'm not dead yet"
Oh please... rolling off a stretcher aftering having a few 500lb bombs drop on you is hardly 'trying to get away'
Don't give him 'credit' where none is due.
"When Sunni Gets Blue...."
It does my heart good to know that the last thing he saw before he headed for room temperature was American soldiers.
ROFLMAOWTIME!!!!
"Then the rain begins to fall..."
Looks almost like they want to make him out as a fighter to the end sort of hero. I am really glad he knew what had happened to him and who had done it.
Could you come around Thursday?
I KNEW that description of the Zark-man's last moments reminded me of something. Thank you! ;-)
Yep - my thoughts too. God bless our troops.
Mr. Quinn sounds like he would have liked to have planted a big fat sloppy kiss on Zarqawi. But now that Zarqawi has gone the way of Che, I guess Quinn will have to make do with a 'Zarqawi Lives' t-shirt.
What's arabic for... 'Oh Crap!'?
I wonder if that picture was cropped to cut out the image of the boot-print on his neck.
"I was just trying to make sure he didn't get away, Sarge"
"Good Job, Soldier!"
(Nah, if that had happened, then it would be all that we were hearing about from the MSM)
hee hee... sweet! I'm so glad the last thing that POS saw in this life was our military. I was worried he had died instantly and had missed the pleasure of knowing what was happening to him and who had done it - you know, the same courtesy he had bestowed on the victims he beheaded.
I would have spit on him (after eating bacon)
It does my heart good to know that the last thing he saw before he headed for room temperature was American soldiers.
**
I like that image!
Pitter patter. Pitter patter.
Roof is gone. So what can matter?
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