Friday, June 09, 2006

Zarqawi killed. Again.

The media is going nuts with reports that supposed al Qaeda #1 bad guy (now that President Bush no longer cares about catching Osama bin Laden) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been killed. Again.

See, for example, this Globe and Mail report.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose bloody campaign of beheadings and suicide bombings made him the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq, was killed when U.S. warplanes dropped 500-pound bombs on his isolated hideout, officials said Thursday.

Honestly, this guy has come back from the dead more often than Lazarus. Will he stay dead this time?

He was reported killed in an explosion in Mosul back in November 2005.

Before that, he was reported "seriously injured, possibly dead" during Operation Matador in 2005.

A widely-circulated letter in 2004 claimed he had been killed in Sulaimaniyah.

Of course, even if Zarqawi actually, really is dead -- and that he wasn't just an invention of the Pentagon in the first place -- nothing will change. Far from being the terrorist mastermind behind every bombing and killing in Iraq, Zarqawi controlled only a tiny proportion of all terrorists/insurgents/freedom fighters/rebels/partisans/whatever [pick one] in Iraq. Zarqawi was happy to take responsibility for every anti-occupation act in the country, and the US government were even happier to blame him for anything he missed.

Pat Lang over on Sic Semper Tyrannis is asking Will the Next Zarqawi Please Stand Up?.

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