World leaders and terrorism experts described the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a blow to al-Qaida, but warned that his network of lieutenants would step up to carry on his campaign of death and destruction in Iraq.

October 20, 1966: Born Ahmad Fadhil Nazzal al-Khalayleh in Jordan, part of Bani Hassan Bedouin tribe.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi rose from the life of a street thug in Jordan to become the symbol of “holy war” in Iraq, masterminding the bloodiest suicide bombings of the insurgency, beheading hostages and helping push Iraq into a spiral of sectarian violence with vicious attacks against Shiites.

The father of a US contractor believed to have been beheaded in Iraq by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said today he does not see any good coming from al-Zarqawi’s killing.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida-linked militant who led a bloody campaign of suicide bombings, kidnappings and hostage beheadings in Iraq, has been killed in a US air raid north of Baghdad.

Kidnappers of Egypt’s top diplomat in Iraq threatened to kill him because today on an al-Qaida-linked website.

Masked militants today threatened to behead a Japanese hostage within 48 hours unless Japan pulls its troops out of Iraq.

US warplanes struck twice in rebel-held Fallujah today, destroying a restaurant and a house said to be used by members of the terror group that beheaded Briton Ken Bigley.

A VIDEO posted on a website last night showed the apparent beheading of American construction contractor Eugene Armstrong, said to have been carried out personally by key Iraq terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Iraqi kidnappers tonight beheaded an American on video – but said two more Western hostages, including British man Kenneth Bigley, would have the deadline for their executions delayed by 24 hours.

A video found on an Islamic militant website today broadcast footage of an American man telling US troops to stop the occupation of Iraq and then showed his head being cut off.

A car bomb exploded today outside a police station in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing at least five people and injuring 53 others, police said.

Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s terrorist group says it has kidnapped two Turkish truck drivers and will kill them in 48 hours if their company does not stop working in Iraq, according to a new videotape broadcast today on Al-Jazeera TV.

A decapitated body in an orange jumpsuit was discovered in the Tigris River north of Baghdad, the US military said today.

INSURGENTS yesterday killed an Iraqi provincial governor and two of his guards in a grenade attack on his convoy.

A MILITANT group holding two Bulgarian truck drivers hostage in Iraq said last night it had executed one of them and planned to kill the other in 24 hours.

Insurgents holding a Filipino truck driver hostage said today that he was still alive, but had been moved to the place where he was to be killed if the Philippines did not agree to remove their troops from Iraq, according to a video on the pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera.

Bulgaria and the Philippines insisted today they would not be cowed by terrorists after insurgents captured and threatened to kill their nationals in Iraq, the latest hostage takings in the country.

THE camera shows the suicide bomber warmly embracing a group of masked men. There are kisses on the cheek and a shot of him in the cab of a truck — his fingers resting on what appears to be a detonator.

A reporter with Time Magazine has received video footage of a suicide bomber chronicling his final hours right up to his deadly mission.

Up to 15 people were reported killed when explosions rocked a house in the turbulent Iraqi city of Fallujah today.

Iraq has arrested four men accused of involvement in the beheading of American businessman Nicholas Berg, a government spokesman said in Baghdad.

An Iraqi militant group has confirmed on a website that it has beheaded a captive US marine.

Al-Qaida fighters in Iraq are desperate to capture a female coalition soldier, it was reported today.

IRAQI militants freed three Turkish hostages yesterday, as another group of kidnappers claimed to have executed a US soldier captured nearly three months ago.

Iraqi militants shot dead an American soldier they have held hostage for nearly three months, saying he was killed because the US government did not change its policy in Iraq, Al-Jazeera television said today.

The extremist movement responsible for beheading two foreign hostages, Al-Zarqawi, announced today it had kidnapped three Turkish workers and would kill them within 72 hours unless Turkish companies quit doing business with U.S. forces in Iraq, an Arab television station reported.

An Iraqi militant group believed linked to al-Qaida beheaded a South Korean hostage after the Seoul government refused to bow to the terrorists’ demands to cancel plans to send its troops to Iraq.

Arab satellite TV network Al-Jazeera has aired a video said to be from al-Qaida-linked militants showing a South Korean hostage begging for his life and pleading with his government to withdraw troops from Iraq.

AN AL-QAIDA group in Saudi Arabia yesterday carried out its threat to behead an American engineer they had taken hostage.

LETTER that a leader of militants in Iraq purportedly wrote to Osama bin Laden saying his fighters are being squeezed by US-led coalition troops has resurfaced on Islamic websites, drawing fire yesterday from al-Qaida sympathisers.

A letter that a leader of militants in Iraq purportedly wrote to Osama bin Laden saying his fighters are being squeezed by US-led coalition troops has resurfaced on Islamic Web sites, drawing fire today from al-Qaida sympathisers.

The leader of militants who say they beheaded an American in Iraq has allegedly written to Osama bin Laden saying his fighters are being squeezed by US-led coalition troops.

Human rights groups are angry at a United Nations report that praised the US and its allies for ending years of brutality by Saddam Hussein’s regime, but did not “call coalition forces to account”.

An associate of al-Qaida killer Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been captured in Iraq, the US command revealed today.

US President George Bush has promised to seek the incoming Iraqi government’s permission to demolish the Baghdad jail at the centre of prisoner abuse allegations.

A group linked to al-Qaida today claimed responsibility for a Baghdad suicide attack that targeted an Iraqi deputy minister, the second fatal bombing it has claimed in a week.

Four people have been arrested over the beheading of US businessman Nicholas Berg, whose killing was shown earlier this month in a video on an al-Qaida linked website, a senior Iraqi source said.

THE head of the Iraqi Governing Council was assassinated in a suicide car bombing near a checkpoint outside the coalition headquarters in central Baghdad yesterday.

The father of an American beheaded in Iraq said he holds US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld responsible for his son’s death and called for his resignation.

What does a US politician under severe pressure do to counter the welter of negative publicity and resignation demands?

Radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr condemned the United States in a sermon at Friday prayers in Kufa as his fighters fought American forces in Najaf, another holy city that lies six miles to the southwest.

A young American decapitated on a videotape released this week told friends that he was arrested by Iraqi police in Mosul because he had an Israeli stamp in his passport. The Mosul police chief today denied having arrested him.