Posted on 06/10/2006 7:08:02 AM PDT by Pokey78
Two US doctors have begun an autopsy on the body of top militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a US-led operation in Iraq this week.
Questions have arisen over how Zarqawi died since the Americans revealed he had still been alive following the bombing of a safe house by US planes.
It is unclear if Zarqawi's remains will be released to his family in Jordan.
Iraq has seen more violence with five butchers shot dead in a shop in Mosul and three deaths in a Baghdad bombing.
Sensitive operation
"The autopsy is going on right now as we speak," Maj Gen William Caldwell, a senior spokesman for the US-led coalition, said in Baghdad.
"We are doing the autopsy to see how he actually died. It will be completed by this evening and will be made public maybe as early as Monday."
Two military experts were flown in to perform the procedure he said, adding that they would be sensitive to Muslim traditions about dealing with the body.
"They are very familiar with this kind of thing," he said.
"One of them has the information and knows the customs and traditions of the religion."
Victims' relatives offended
A row has broken out in Jordan after a number of Islamist politicians offered condolences to Zarqawi's family
The move was condemned by relatives of the 60 people killed in the Jordanian capital, Amman, last year in suicide bombings carried out by Zarqawi's group.
His family, some of whom view him as a martyr, have asked for the return of his body to Jordan for burial but it is not clear if the Jordanian government or the US military will permit this.
Zarqawi was still alive when Iraqi police got to the scene of the air strikes but he died shortly afterwards from his wounds, Gen Caldwell said earlier.
US planes dropped two 500lb (230kg) bombs on his safe house near the city of Baquba on Wednesday.
After US troops arrived, Zarqawi tried to move off the stretcher where he had been placed, Gen Caldwell said.
"Everybody re-secured him back onto the stretcher, but he died almost immediately thereafter from the wounds he had received from this air strike," he added.
US military officials had earlier said Zarqawi did not survive the strike, which they said came after tip-offs from his organisation.
I do not see why he deserves better treatment than his many victims, such as the four contractors in Fallujah in April 2004.
You don't understand. Recycling the corpse through a bunch of pigs would purify it. They we send the byproduct back to his family. They can have the hogs too, but I don't think they'd want them.
He's dead Jim.
Works for me ...... just make SURE correct side toward enemy!
Semper Fi
Head first.
Unbelievable. Just 48 hours out.
Will the US media show a beheading of an innocent American or Brit, having his head sawed off in slow, painful motions, by Zarkawi himself?
No, they will try as best as they can get get any footage or photos of Zarkawi in his last minutes of pain, 'induced by the Americans'.
Why not feed his remains to the hogs?
Hell, even better... I love offending the assholes.
When they're angry -- they fire wildly in their spray, pray and hop manner....
Semper Fi
AP, figures.
June 10, 2006, 6:55 AM EDT
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- An Iraqi man who was one of the first people on the scene of the U.S. airstrike targeting Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said he saw American troops beating a man who had a beard like the al-Qaida leader.
The witness, who lives near the house where al-Zarqawi spent his last days, said he saw the man lying on the ground near an irrigation canal. He was badly wounded but still alive, the man told Associated Press Television News.
U.S. troops arriving on the scene wrapped the man's head in an Arab robe and began beating him, said the local man, who refused to give his name or show his face to the camera. His account could not be independently verified.
This is not going to win friend and influence people in either the US or Iraq. Most everyone not a Jihadist or a leftist will just say or think "Good ridance to bad rubish".
"Why not feed his remains to the hogs?"
What you got against hogs?
Translation....they will strain the bacon grease before lathering the carcass with it.
Which means, kind of obviously, it was not a direct hit now does it? Kind of looks like the concussion did him from the pictures.
Post Mortem torture!< /sarcasm >
"What would General John J. Pershing do?"
TT
I don't think you'd be offending the hogs. I can remember several old sows that would enjoy devouring his carcass, although those particular old gals have gone to hog heaven by now.
Of course they don't shred bodies, they shred living people.
That would be the civilized, Western method of autopsy. I think Zarqawi should be subject to his own methods. Obviously, the appropriate way to treat his body is to saw off the head. Anything else would not be culturally sensitive.
The last thing that went through his mind was his a*s.
TMT - too much trouble. Any [un]sanitary landfill or a cesspool would do - the field conditions, you know.
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