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How they zeroed in to kill Zarqawi ~ F-16's called in for the final strike
The Sydney Morning Herald ^ | June 10, 2006 | Craig Gordon in Washington

Posted on 06/10/2006 11:20:03 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach

N THE late afternoon sky over Iraq, two F-16 pilots were "in the orbit", as the US Air Force calls it, cruising through a routine patrol about to become anything but.

Their radios crackled. A "high-value target" - military-speak for a terrorist big shot - was in an isolated safe house in a date palm grove below. Here are the co-ordinates, they heard. Prepare to engage. As the pilots swung towards Baquba, the most wanted man in Iraq probably did not even notice the fighter jets, kept kilometres away, or realise he had been betrayed by an ally and trailed by US special forces.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - the face of the Iraqi insurgency, beheader of hostages and bomber of civilians, a man whose taste for violence made him stand out even in a violent land - never saw it coming.

The first 227-kilogram, guided bomb hit the safe house at 6.15pm on Wednesday, Baghdad time. The pilots doubled back and decided not to take any chances. They dropped a second satellite-guided bomb "to ensure the target set was serviced appropriately", an air force general said.

Zarqawi, his spiritual adviser, Sheik Abu Abdul-Rahman, and four others were dead - after a week-long investigation.

Through tips from a leader in Zarqawi's network, and other sources, the US was onto Abdul-Rahman, who inadvertently led coalition forces to the house.

Zarqawi's capture or death was a priority for US troops in Iraq. The Jordanian terrorist, in his late 30s, had risen almost to Osama bin Laden's stature, in terms of US attention.

Zarqawi and his aides had been hunted by an elite and secretive team of US special forces - Task Force 77. They nearly apprehended him several times, most recently in April during raids near Yusufiyah in the south.

Now US officials say his capture happened through some old-style investigations and breaks. There were varying reports of how Zarqawi was tracked down.

Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who announced on Thursday morning that Zarqawi had been "eliminated", credited tips from residents in Baquba, north-east of Baghdad. And Iraq's Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, suggested Zarqawi had slipped up trying to gain publicity, saying officials "pinpointed" his location in a video released in late April.

And in a crucial breakthrough last month, Jordanian intelligence officers captured a mid-level Zarqawi operative near the Iraqi border.

The operative, Ziad Khalaf al-Kerbouly, used his position as an Iraqi customs clearance officer in Rutbah, along the main road from Amman to Baghdad, to help Zarqawi smuggle cash and materiel for the insurgency.

Kerbouly told Jordanian interrogators the identity and contacts for Zarqawi's spiritual adviser, who served as his liaison to Muslim clerics across Iraq, gathering recruits, funding and support for the insurgency.

Major-General Bill Caldwell, a US military spokesman in Baghdad, declined to comment about Jordanian help on Thursday. By his account, the capture or killing of al-Qaeda lieutenants in recent weeks, beginning with a cell leader in Yusufiyah on April 6, produced critical intelligence.

Task Force 77 located Abdul-Rahman and kept him under surveillance, partly by remote-controlled planes. When US forces knew the adviser would meet Zarqawi on Wednesday night, they decided to strike.

"We knew exactly who was there," General Caldwell said. "We knew it was Zarqawi, and that was who we went to get."

Shown from above in a military photograph, the house appeared to be a white, two-storey structure with a verdant courtyard, located beside ploughed fields and a paved road at the edge of a date palm forest. No other buildings were nearby.

US officials say his dead body was photographed as evidence within minutes of the strike.


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: dead; iraq; zarqawi
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1 posted on 06/10/2006 11:20:05 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

bttt


2 posted on 06/10/2006 11:20:51 AM PDT by Guenevere
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Zarqawi, his spiritual adviser, Sheik Abu Abdul-Rahman, and four others were dead - after a week-long investigation.

Wasnt Ramsi Yousef's "spiritual advisor" named Abdul Rahman as well?

3 posted on 06/10/2006 11:22:15 AM PDT by cardinal4 (Allah is the opium pipedream of a desert pedophile...Freeper Ax)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
They dropped a second satellite-guided bomb "to ensure the target set was serviced appropriately", an air force general said.

JDAM, when it absolutely, positively, needs to be taken out.

4 posted on 06/10/2006 11:27:26 AM PDT by JRios1968 (There's 3 kinds of people in this world...those who know math and those who don't.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
"They dropped a second satellite-guided bomb "to ensure the target set was serviced appropriately."

I Love It!


5 posted on 06/10/2006 11:29:01 AM PDT by rvoitier ("And if talk is cheap anywhere, perhaps it is cheapest, quite frankly, in the Congress." Vitter(R-La)
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To: cardinal4
Wasnt Ramsi Yousef's "spiritual advisor" named Abdul Rahman as well?

Different noodle....that was Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. He's in US Federal custody, serving a life sentence.

I wonder, though...can we do profiling based on one-eyed clerics? Seems like many of the baddies have that similarity! Was that the case with Abdul Rahman?

6 posted on 06/10/2006 11:33:26 AM PDT by Gondring (If "Conservatives" now wants to "conserve" our Constitution away, then I must be a Preservative!)
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To: Gondring

Thats right-Ramsi's boy was passing messages through his lawyer, Lynne Stewart..


7 posted on 06/10/2006 11:35:07 AM PDT by cardinal4 (Allah is the opium pipedream of a desert pedophile...Freeper Ax)
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To: JRios1968
JDAM...

Just DAMN!

8 posted on 06/10/2006 11:35:22 AM PDT by Gondring (If "Conservatives" now wants to "conserve" our Constitution away, then I must be a Preservative!)
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To: JRios1968

Were you in the unit?


9 posted on 06/10/2006 11:36:03 AM PDT by Red6
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To: rvoitier

ROFL.....all targets should be serviced so Appropriately!!


10 posted on 06/10/2006 11:36:57 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: cardinal4
But there's also an FBI Most Wanted Abdul Rahman from the 93 WTC bombing... Abdul Rahman Yasin (aka Abdul Rahman Said Yasin, Aboud Yasin, Abdul Rahman S. Taha, Abdul Rahman S. Taher).

Photograph of  ABDUL RAHMAN YASIN Photograph of  ABDUL RAHMAN YASIN taken in 2002
 
Photograph taken in 2002


11 posted on 06/10/2006 11:39:55 AM PDT by Gondring (If "Conservatives" now wants to "conserve" our Constitution away, then I must be a Preservative!)
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To: Red6

No, but one of the guys in my unit is currently deployed there.


12 posted on 06/10/2006 11:41:28 AM PDT by JRios1968 (There's 3 kinds of people in this world...those who know math and those who don't.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
I have found one source in Spain for the attack video, but none where the video can be saved to the local hard drive.
Has anyone else found a source that they can share of a downloadable version?
13 posted on 06/10/2006 11:44:50 AM PDT by Publius6961 (Multiculturalism is the white flag of a dying country)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
yeah and those those who insist that Islam is a Religion of Peace should really take a hard look at this phrase "Zarqawi, his spiritual adviser, Sheik Abu Abdul-Rahman, and four others were dead"

Both himself and his "spiritual advisor" are all of the same kind: Mass Murderers

14 posted on 06/10/2006 11:48:25 AM PDT by prophetic
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Looks like Zaqueery was Serviced Appropriately!

Pray for W and Our Air Force Pilots
15 posted on 06/10/2006 11:48:49 AM PDT by bray (Hey Zaqueeri, how ya like those IEDs???)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
"As the pilots swung towards Baquba, the most wanted man in Iraq probably did not even notice the fighter jets, kept kilometres away, or realise he had been betrayed by an ally and trailed by US special forces."

Or as another FReeper so cleverly put it, Zarcoward (pig fat be smeared upon his rotten corpse) is out having a smoke, hears a jet in distance, looks up, and says, "Oh look, something broke off that plane."

16 posted on 06/10/2006 11:51:44 AM PDT by StAnDeliver
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To: JRios1968
Ahhh, cool-

You work with ordinance?
17 posted on 06/10/2006 11:57:10 AM PDT by Red6
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

We used to joke about the whole Demming Total Quality Management phraseology when it became the Air Force's big initiative in the mid 1990s. The various organizations started sending out surveys to make sure the "customer" was satisfied with the service rendered. We made a lot of jokes about sending surveys to targets who were the recipient of our services, to ensure they were completely satisfied.


18 posted on 06/10/2006 12:05:27 PM PDT by gregwest
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
[Kerbouly told Jordanian interrogators the identity and contacts for Zarqawi's spiritual adviser, who served as his liaison to Muslim clerics across Iraq, gathering recruits, funding and support for the insurgency.]

I'd be willing to bet that the Jordanian interrogators were not encumbered by our suicidal self-imposed PC restrictions on interrogation techniques.

19 posted on 06/10/2006 12:15:21 PM PDT by Mad_Tom_Rackham (Memo to GOP: Don't ask me for any more money until you secure our Southern border.)
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To: JRios1968
Thread from the 8th:

Monster betrayed by closest allies (Zarqawi location tipped off by captured deputies)

20 posted on 06/10/2006 12:20:15 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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