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The Washington Post has accused the US army of overstating the role Zarqawi through an extensive propaganda campaign.
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CAIRO – In a scene reminiscent to Saddam Hussein capture declaration, the US army announced on Thursday, June 8, the killing of Al-Qaeda chief in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and seven of his associates in a US strike a day earlier.
"The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi marks a great success for Iraq and the global war on terror," US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad told a press conference.
The top US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, said Zarqawi's body had been identified by ground troops after a successful strike against an isolated safe house near the city of Baquba 65 km north of Iraq.
"This is the result of fruitful cooperation with the Iraqi people who tipped and facilitated the air strike," Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told the same press conference.
"This is a message to those who chose the path of violence to stop and change their direction before it is too late," he added.
"I thank our forces, our police and the multinational forces for what they are doing in pursuing the terrorists."
With a $25 million US bounty on his head, Zarqawi is blamed by the US for the beheading of foreign captives and suicide bombings that have killed hundreds in Iraq.
Magnified
A high-ranking Jordanian official said Jordanian-born Zarqawi was killed in the Iraqi city of Baquba during a joint US-Jordanian operation.
"Zarqawi was killed in Baquba at 7:00 pm local Iraqi time in a joint operation involving the Jordanian intelligence, the US intelligence and American special operations forces," a high-ranking Jordanian official told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"It was a land operation with air cover," he added.
According to the official, Zarqawi was "presiding over a meeting of his terrorist group" at the time of the operation.
"He died 10 minutes after the operation, along with eight to 10 of his partisans," the official added.
Some posters of the most wanted man in Iraq show him in glasses, looking like an accountant, others as a tough-looking man in a black skullcap.
Believed to be in his late 30s, Zarqawi remains a mysterious figure for Iraqis.
Citing an internal military document, the Washington Post reported in April that the US military has been for two years overstating the role Zarqawi through an extensive propaganda campaign that targeted both the Iraqis and the American people.
The campaign aimed to turn Iraqis against Zarqawi, a Jordanian, by playing on their perceived dislike of foreigners.
The propaganda blitz has included leaflets, radio and television broadcasts and Internet postings.
US military leaders have been using Iraqi media and other outlets in Baghdad to publicize Zarqawi's role in the insurgency, the American term for Iraqi resistance.
Although Zarqawi and other foreigners in Iraq have conducted deadly bombing attacks, they remain "a very small part of the actual numbers," Col. Derek Harvey, a former top military intelligence officer in Iraq, told an Army meeting at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., last summer.
"Our opwn focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will -- made him more imortant than he really is, in some ways."
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