BAGHDAD - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced on Thursday that al Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been killed in a joint U.S. and Iraqi military raid north of Baghdad.
Jordanian-born Zarqawi is blamed by the United States for the beheading of foreign captives and suicide bombings that have maimed and killed hundreds in Iraq. He had become a figurehead for Islamist militants opposing Washington and Maliki's government.
"Today Zarqawi has been terminated," Maliki told a televised news conference attended by the top U.S. commander in Iraq, General George Casey, and other senior officials.
Casey said Zarqawi's body had been identified and warned that Zarqawi's followers still posed a security threat to Iraq.
Iraqiya television said seven Zarqawi aides were also killed in the raid in the violent city of Baquba 65 km (40 miles) north of the capital.
The most feared leader of the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq, with a $25 million U.S. 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 U.S. officials say he has formed a loose alliance with Saddam Hussein's former agents, benefiting from their money, weapons and intelligence assets to press his campaign.
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, who only know the carnage of his bombers.
* Zarqawi's real name is Ahmed Fadhil al-Khalayleh. Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden appointed him as his deputy in Iraq in October 2004, when Zarqawi changed his group's name from Tawhid wal Jihad to Al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq.
* Zarqawi's group has claimed responsibility for many major suicide bombings and attacks in Iraq, as well as beheadings of foreign hostages. He has a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head.
* After returning from Afghanistan, Zarqawi began a violent campaign in the early 1990s to replace Jordan's monarchy with an Islamist state. He was jailed for 15 years in 1996 but was freed three years later under an amnesty when King Abdullah assumed the throne.
* A Jordanian court sentenced him to death in absentia in 2002 for plotting attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets in Jordan. He was again sentenced to death in April 2004 for planning the assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in the capital Amman in 2002.
* In December 2005, Jordan's state security court handed Zarqawi his third death sentence in absentia for planning a failed suicide attack at the border post with Iraq.
* Zarqawi claimed triple suicide bomb attacks that killed 60 people at luxury hotels in Amman in November 2005. Some residents of the industrial town of Zarqa, Zarqawi's birthplace said at the time he deserved death for attacks on Jordan.
His killing could be seen as one of the most significant developments for the United States forces and the Iraqi government it backs since the capture of former President Saddam Hussein.
The following are comments from leaders and experts:
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad:
Zarqawi's death marks a "great success", he said, but cautioned that it will not end violence in the country.
British PM Tony Blair:
"Today's announcement was very good news because a blow against al Qaeda in Iraq was a blow against al Qaeda everywhere," Blair's office said in a statement.
Iraqi Deputy PM Barham Salih:
"This is a very important victory for the people of Iraq. He was the evil of terrorism. He was responsible for the deaths of many people in Iraq. Having him killed is a very important achievement for us. We are strongly determined to root out the remaining al Qaeda people. This is a serious blow to terrorism. We hope that terrorism in Iraq will be over," Salih told Reuters at a conference in Istanbul.
London Based Islamist Expert Yasser Al-Sirry:
"Zarqawi's death, if confirmed, will have little effect on the jihad in Iraq." "He made clear several times that he is the leader of one faction that is fighting under the Mujahideen Council umbrella. I expect no let up in the jihad, maybe even an escalation as his followers wage retribution killings." Sirry said he would only be sure of Zarqawi's death when Al Qaeda announced it: "They will not shy from announcing it, after all, he is a martyr."
Rohan Gunaratna, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore:
"If that information is true, it is the most significant victory in the fight against terrorism. He was certainly the most active terrorist in Iraq. More than that, he was using Iraq to mount operations in the neighbourhood, for instance the Jordan attacks (last year) were by his group... "He had an extensive network overseas, in Europe and in the Middle East, and he was expanding this network... "Zarqawi didn't have a number two. I can't think of any single person who would succeed Zarqawi...In terms of effectiveness, there was no single leader in Iraq who could match his ruthlessness and his determination. It will be very difficult to replace a man of the stature of Zarqawi."
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former British Special Representative in Iraq, talking to the BBC:
"I think he's been an icon for terrorism, for the jihadists in Iraq, because he was there before the invasion of Iraq. He was organising things immediately after the collapse of the Saddam regime. I think he's been extremely important in creating such a nasty, effective terrorist threat and he will not be quickly replaceable, in that sense, as an icon. But there are plenty of others to fill the gap in due course. His reach did extend beyond Iraq ... he has been a very extraordinary and I think influential figure. So, that is lost to that nasty group and we must celebrate that."
Mustafa Alani, Gulf Research Centre in Dubai:
"Zarqawi's a central figure but I believe that the organisation will survive," he told Reuters. "His death will have some impact on the security situation but it won't be enough, let's not exaggerate the impact." "There are hundreds and hundreds of Arab fighters in Iraq and they know they will be killed or captured one day, and they have alternate leaders."
On oil sector security:
"This is the strategy of an organisation, not a man. I don't really see that much of an impact."
Diaa Rashwan, Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies:
"The Americans exaggerated from the start the size of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and there will be exaggerations about the effect of his death as there were extreme exaggerations at the time of the arrest of Saddam Hussein... "Al-Zarqawi in recent times did not represent an important element in violent operations on the ground in Iraq. Other groups which are not extreme, resistance groups not terrorist groups, have grown in strength. Out of the violence of the insurgency Zarqawi's group represented only five to seven percent."
Montasser Al-Zayyat, Lawyer with close contacts with Egypt's Miltant Islamists:
"Zarkawi was a symbol ... and was the head of an army... If Zarkawi has fallen, there are others to take his place and take responsibility."
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