Al-Zarqawi Said to Survive Airstrike

Photo Courtesy: middle-east-online.com

(WASHINGTON D.C.) - A mortally wounded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, still alive after a U.S. airstrike on his hideout, mumbled briefly and attempted to "turn away off the stretcher" he had been placed on by Iraqi police, the U.S. military said Friday. U.S. officials had said Thursday in announcing the attack that Zarqawi was dead when U.S. troops arrived on the scene. Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell, briefing military reporters at the Pentagon from his post in Baghdad, said he learned after getting briefings Friday that Zarqawi was alive when Iraqi police first arrived on the scene, but he died a short time later. "We did in fact see him alive," Caldwell said. "He mumbled a little something but it was indistinguishable and it was very short." Caldwell indicated that U.S. troops "went into the process to provide medical care to him" before he expired. He did not elaborate on the medical assistance. The spokesman also provided a revised accounting of the dead. He said the six people killed in the airstrike included three women. On Thursday U.S. officials had said one woman and one child were among the dead. Caldwell said Friday the latest information available to him gave no indication that a child was killed. The U.S. military earlier had displayed images of the battered face of al-Zarqawi and reported that he had been identified by fingerprints, tattoos and scars. Biological samples from his body also were delivered to an FBI crime laboratory in Virginia for DNA testing. The results were expected in three days. Caldwell said Friday that authorities made a visual identification of al-Zarqawi upon arriving at the site of the airstrike. "Zarqawi attempted to sort of turn away off the stretcher, everybody resecured him back onto the stretcher but he died almost immediately thereafter from the wounds he'd received from this airstrike," Caldwell said. Caldwell said it was unclear whether Zarqawi was trying to get away as he made movement on the stretcher. "We did in fact see him alive," Caldwell said. "There was some kind of movement he had on the stretcher and he did die shortly thereafter. But yes, it was confirmed by other than the Iraqi police that he was alive initially." Al-Zarqawi, who had a $25 million bounty on his head, was killed at 6:15 PM Wednesday after an intense two-week hunt that U.S. officials said first led to the terror leader's spiritual adviser and then to him. U.S. Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said at the time that the American airstrike targeted "an identified, isolated safe house." Four other people, including a woman and a child, were killed with al-Zarqawi and Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi, the terrorist's spiritual consultant