BAGHDAD: Abu Musab Al Zarqawi may have has lost his deputy but the elusive leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq has defied past claims that he himself was close to capture, keeping up a bloody war against Iraq’s US-backed government.
The US military said yesterday that the second-in-command of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Azzam, was shot dead in Baghdad on Sunday after he was tracked to a high-rise building. An Iraqi government spokesman said he was an Iraqi national.
US forces have reported the capture or killing of several Zarqawi associates in recent months, including a driver and several junior commanders.
But the Jordanian-born guerrilla chief still evades his pursuers, directing relentless suicide bombings that have killed hundreds if not thousands of Iraqi civilians, police and troops. In May, reports that he had been seriously wounded sparked talk of a successor, but his followers said the injuries should only serve to inspire his men to step up attacks.
This month Zarqawi declared war on Iraq’s majority Shi’ite Muslims, reinforcing fears that he was out to ignite civil war. Osama bin Laden named Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq after he pledged allegiance to the overall al Qaeda leader in October 2004. Bin Laden called him the prince of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
The most feared leader of the Sunni Arab insurgency, with a $25 million US bounty on his head, Zarqawi has inspired an apparently endless supply of militants from across the Arab world to blow themselves up in suicide missions in Iraq.
Iraqi and US officials say he has formed a loose alliance with Saddam Hussein’s former agents.     – Reuters




photo: A Kurdish parliament member yawns while another doses off during a session by the northern region’s autonomous parliament in the Kurdish city of Arbil yesterday. Violence is expected to escalate ahead of a national referendum on October 15 on Iraq’s new constitution, which a leading think-tank warned has deepened sectarian rifts and is likely to fuel the Sunni-led insurgency and hasten the country’s violent break-up. Sunnis believe the charter favours Shias and Kurds.     – AFP
Last update on: 28-9-2005