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BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military flew in two forensic specialists Saturday to examine the remains of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "to see how he actually died" and to reconstruct the last minutes of his life, a spokesman said. The examination comes after U.S. authorities altered their initial account of the al-Qaida leader's death, first saying he died outright in a U.S. airstrike, then saying he survived but died soon after. Also, an Iraqi man raised fresh questions, telling Associated Press Television News that he saw U.S. soldiers beating an injured man resembling al-Zarqawi until blood flowed from his nose. Maj....

WASHINGTON - President Bush was celebrating "a good week for the cause of freedom," with the killing of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the completion of Baghdad's government, as he huddled with advisers. "We will determine how to best deploy America's resources in Iraq and achieve our shared goal of an Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address. "There's still difficult work ahead in Iraq. Yet this week, the ideology of terror has suffered a severe blow." The president was spending the weekend at Camp David, Md., preparing for...

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...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. officials have altered their account of the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, saying he was alive and partly conscious after bombs destroyed his hideout, and an Iraqi man raised fresh questions Saturday about the events surrounding the end of Iraq's most-wanted militant. The man, who lived near the scene of the bombing, claimed in an interview with AP Television News to have seen U.S. soldiers beating an injured man resembling al-Zarqawi until blood flowed from the man's nose. When asked about the man's allegations, military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said he would check. In Washington,...

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...

39 raids conducted based in part on intelligence from al-Zarqawi safe house WASHINGTON - U.S. forces have arrested more than two dozen individuals over the past two days based on intelligence gathered from the scene of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s killing, a top U.S. general said Friday. Also, fearing that insurgents will seek revenge, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki imposed driving bans in Baghdad and the restive Diyala province, where the terrorist was killed. Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell said U.S. troops conducted 39 raids late Thursday and early Friday, some based on information gleaned from searches in the hours after the...

"The first 500-pound laser-guided bomb slammed into the safe house at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday Baghdad time. The pilots doubled back and decided not to take any chances. They dropped a second Boeing-built, satellite-guided 500-pound GBU-38 bomb "to ensure the target set was serviced appropriately," one Air Force general said dryly."

Today Sen. Clinton issued a statement on the death of Abu Musab al Zarkawi. Here it is in its entirety: "As a leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarkawi was responsible for despicable attacks that claimed the lives of too many Iraqis and Americans. I saw firsthand the terrible consequences of Zarqawi's terrorist network when Bill, Chelsea and I visited the hotel ballroom in Amman, Jordan last November where Zarqawi's followers had detonated a bomb at a wedding, killing and wounding innocent people. We owe our thanks to our men and women in uniform and others in...

An Iraqi customs agent secretly working with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror cell spilled the beans on the group after he was arrested, Jordanian officials tell ABC News. Ziad Khalaf Raja al-Karbouly was arrested by Jordanian intelligence forces last spring. Officials say Karbouly confessed to his role in the terror cell and provided crucial information on the names of Zarqawi commanders and locations of their safe houses. Karbouly also admitted to his role in the kidnappings of two Moroccan embassy employees, four Iraqi National Guards and an Iraqi finance ministry official. In a videotaped confession, Karbouly said he acted on direct...

He died after ‘he mumbled something,’ military spokesman says WASHINGTON - A mortally wounded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, still alive after a U.S. airstrike on his hideout, mumbled briefly and attempted to “turn away off the stretcher” he had been placed on by Iraqi police, the U.S. military said Friday. U.S. officials had said Thursday in announcing the attack that Zarqawi was dead when U.S. troops arrived on the scene. Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell, briefing military reporters at the Pentagon from his post in Baghdad, said he learned after getting briefings Friday that Zarqawi was alive when Iraqi police first arrived...

Make no mistake: Democrats are depressed. They're down in the dumps because they have been counting on the war in Iraq to go badly so that they can use that to pick up enough seats in this fall's election to take back control of the House. With Zarqawi getting clipped yesterday [WARNING: Fox News photos of Zarqawi's dead body] , this throws a wrench in things. What is going to happen to their aspirations if this marks a turning point in Iraq and we defeat the insurgency? Worse than that .. what happens if Bush gets the opportunity to display...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Now that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is dead, there seems little certainty who will succeed the brutal killer who was the most wanted terrorist in Iraq. An American general thinks it will be Egyptian-born, Afghanistan-trained Abu al-Masri, whose name is an obvious alias, meaning "father of the Egyptian." Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said Thursday that al-Masri was the "most logical" successor but offered no details on why. Caldwell said al-Masri is thought to have come to Iraq in 2002 after training in Afghanistan with the mission of creating an al-Qaida cell...

Thursday, June 8th, 2006 Death Finds Satan’s Second Most Favored Serpent Coalition forces acting on a tip reportedly from within his own organization leveled the safe house outside of Baquba where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was hiding yesterday, killing the terrorist.By his own account, al-Zarqawi is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and many Coalition forces and contractors. An acolyte of Osama Bin Laden, al-Zarqawi was, to many, the face of terrorism in Iraq. This was partly the result of Bin Laden’s annointment of him as chief deputy there, but more so because of his sophisticated manipulation of the...

While Iraqis might be celebrating the death of al-Zarqawi and his death reportably being praised around the world, the reality over here seems quite different from what is being reported in much of the Western media. The initial reaction from Southeast Asia this morning seems a bit tempered with many of the local population not even being aware of the news reporting his death. Much of the local population relies on print and televison for their news with the internet penetration rates still well below that of the West. Zarqawi's death is hardly making any headline news over here. This...

If you are looking for the legacy of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, do not look in the concrete rubble of so-called safe house in Baqubah that became his final resting place. Instead, look less than 10 miles to the west, on the side of the road in the desert town of Hadid, for a pile of cardboard banana boxes. Inside those boxes were nine human heads. Some of the heads still had their blindfolds on. Iraqi police are still attempting to identify the murdered men. Days earlier, in Baquba, Iraqi police found another eight severed heads. One of those heads...

The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is excellent news in its own right and even more excellent if, as U.S. sources in Iraq are claiming, it resulted from information that derived from people who were or had been close to him. (And, if that claim is black propaganda, then it is clever black propaganda, which is also excellent news.)It hasn't taken long for the rain to start falling on this parade. Nick Berg's father, a MoveOn type now running for Congress on the Green Party ticket, has already said that he blames President George Bush for the video-beheading of his...

5.15pm update Blair: Zarqawi death a 'strike against al-Qaida everywhere' Bonnie Malkin and agenciesThursday June 8, 2006 The aftermath of a US airstrike north-east of Baghdad which killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Photograph: APTN/AP  Tony Blair and George Bush today hailed the targeted killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as "a blow for al-Qaida". Mr Blair told his monthly news conference the US air raid that killed Zarqawi - the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq - would severely damage the terrorist network."The death of al-Zarqawi is a strike against al-Qaida in Iraq and therefore a strike against al-Qaida everywhere," he said.However,...

This is hilarious. Anyone can do it too. Enjoy the laughs.

It’s a great day for America and the war on terror now that Zarqawi is dead. It’s a victory for America, George Bush, and our military special forces. If you are happy that Zarqawi is dead; you are an American. If you feel that Zarqawi’s death means nothing and actually feel sorry for him; you are NOT an American. If you don’t care how the intelligence was obtained to obliterate Zarqawi; you are an American. If you have sympathy for an imprisioned terrorist that might have been tortured; you are NOT an American. If you think killing enemies against this...

The family of murdered hostage Ken Bigley have spoken of their relief at the death of militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. Zarqawi, who led al-Qaeda in Iraq, is suspected of being involved in the murder of Mr Bigley, who was taken hostage and killed in Iraq in 2004. Mr Bigley's brother Stan said Zarqawi was a "monster" who had killed "a multitude of innocent people". Zarqawi was killed in a US air raid near Baquba. Ken Bigley, 62, originally from Liverpool, was working as an engineer in Iraq when he was kidnapped in September 2004. Three weeks after...