Al-Qaeda chief in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed on Wednesday in the Iraqi city of Baquba during a joint US-Jordanian operation, a high-ranking Jordanian said on Thursday.
”Zarqawi was killed in Baquba at 7pm local Iraqi time [3pm GMT] in a joint operation involving the Jordanian intelligence, the United States intelligence and American special operations forces,” the official said.
”It was a land operation with air cover,” said the unidentified official.
According to the official, Jordanian-born al-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.
He was identified by the agents who carried out the raid, who compared recent pictures of Zarqawi with the body, the official said.
The Jordanian official did not say if Iraqi forces took part in the operation.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced the killing at a press conference in Baghdad.
”What happened … is the result of collaboration from people who facilitated the operation conducted by Iraqi police and multinational forces,” Maliki told reporters.
”This is a message to those who choose the path of violence to change their direction before it is too late. I thank our forces, our police and the multinational forces for what they are doing in pursuing the terrorists.”
The Jordanian official said his country played a crucial role thanks to information it obtained following the arrest last month of an Iraqi al-Qaeda operative linked to al-Zarqawi.
Ziad Khalaf al-Karbuli confessed on Jordanian television on May 23 of links to a;-Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda in Iraq, saying that he murdered a Jordanian driver and abducted two Moroccan embassy employees last year.
The Jordanian authorities said at the time that Karbuli, an Iraqi customs clearing agent, was arrested in a joint operation by Jordan’s intelligence forces and army special forces who lured him out of Iraq.
Al-Zarqawi’s killing was described in Jordan as the ”the operation of the hotel martyrs”, the official said. That was a reference to triple hotel suicide bombings in Amman in November that killed 60 people and for which Zarqawi’s group claimed responsibility. – AFP
