I’ve come to believe that when the media says ‘maybe’ they are mostly wrong.
U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight — some by their own hand to avoid capture. A U.S. official said Sunday that efforts were under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.
In Washington, a U.S. official said the identities of the terror suspects killed in the Saturday raid was unknown. Asked if they could include al-Zarqawi, the official replied: “There are efforts under way to determine if he was killed.”
Yeah, like showing a dead body, unless of course, he was ‘adjusted’ well beyond recognition, then we’ll go for dental records.
I have my doubts about the accuracy of this early report. Not because we blew a mission, or misjudged Al-Zarqawi’s movements. I doubt the man is dead only because I don’t believe he would die in a simple gunfight within a house on a street in Mosul. If this guy is really as important to the terrorists as our media plays him to be, he’d have a couple of extra layers of protection between himself and our troops. Hey, he’s stayed alive this long right?
If he is (in fact) dead, the terrorist war in Iraq will change dramatically. Without their leader, al-Qaida in Iraq will be without their locally popular figure head. His hate has driven hundreds of people to fight. His radical leadership influenced many to become suicide bombers whose purpose it is to kill as many people at once as possible.
Someone with that kind of power doesn’t die easily, and they never die willingly. If he is in fact dead, someone screwed up, perhaps even Al-Zarqawi himself. We’ll know soon enough. (I’ve got my fingers crossed).
UPDATE: DNA Testing Underway, Status of Zarqawi Unresolved.