Iraq’s national security adviser today announced the arrest of the second most senior figure in al Qaida in Iraq.

In a video broadcast tonight, al-Qaida’s deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri hailed the slain terrorist leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as a soldier, an Islamic cleric and a prince of martyrs.

US and Iraqi forces killed 104 insurgents in hundreds of raids since last week’s killing of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and the American death toll in the war in Iraq hit 2,500, the US military said today.

A US military doctor today said al-Qaida terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi died 52 minutes after an airstrike against his safe house north-east of Baghdad.

Early-morning bombings - including a blast that killed six when it struck a minivan of workers in southern Baghdad - continued today as US and Iraqi officials promised a crackdown on violence and sectarian attacks.

US CRUDE oil futures ended more than a dollar higher yesterday as analysts warned the death of Iraq’s al-Qaida leader Musab al-Zarqawi on Thursday would not end threats to Iraq’s battered oil industry.

The family of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said today they want to bury him in his hometown, but a security official vowed the terror leader who killed Jordanians in a triple hotel bombing would never be interred in Jordan.

US President George Bush has hailed the killing of “the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq” but said it would not stop the violence there or bring a speedy withdrawal of US troops.

The Palestinian government’s security chief, a key player in rocket attacks on Israel, was killed late yesterday in an Israeli air strike that threatened to escalate clashes between the two sides into a far fiercer conflict.

THE killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi deprives Islamic terrorism of one of its most high-profile leaders.

INTELLIGENCE officers said they found Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by following his spiritual adviser and deputy, who visited him at a safehouse.

Extremists said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi died the death of a true Muslim hero, but other Arabs saw him as a killer who had devastated many families.

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.

Police in a Shiite slum brandished their guns and fired into the air in celebration today as Iraqis welcomed the announcement that terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed last night in a US airstrike.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today said the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was an event of “enormous importance” for the fight against terror in Iraq and around the world, but would not halt violence in the country.

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.

US President George Bush said today the death of al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq is “a severe blow” to the al-Qaida terrorist network and a decisive victory in the US-led campaign against terrorism.

The US military command in Iraq today released previously unseen footage from a video purportedly posted by al-Qaida in Iraq’s leader, showing him decked out in American trainers and unable to operate his machine gun.

The US government wants an Iraqi court to handle criminal charges against a naturalised American citizen who is being held in Iraq on suspicion that he is linked to insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

THE Jordanian Islamist militant and most-wanted man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is alive, well and seeking alliances among Sunni opponents of US-led forces in Iraq, new reports say.

The international police organisation Interpol today said it had issued an international wanted persons notice for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, who is wanted in several countries for terror attacks.

French counter-terrorism agents today arrested three suspects believed to have “indirect links” to al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a police spokeswoman said.

JORDAN is the homeland of the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and has previously arrested scores of Islamic militants for plotting to carry out attacks in the moderate Arab kingdom.

US President George Bush today praised the security forces who shot dead al-Qaida's second-in-command in Iraq.

US defence officials in Washington today confirmed that Abu Azzam, a leading deputy to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq, has been killed.

A suicide bomber killed sixteen policemen in Baghdad today, a day after the capital suffered its bloodiest day as US troops and insurgents clashed in the troubled western town of Ramadi.

BOMBING and shooting attacks west of Baghdad killed six US troops and a suicide car bomber slammed into a truck carrying Iraqi policemen near the airport yesterday, killing at least eight and wounding 25 - the latest wave of violence aimed at derailing Iraq’s advancing political process.

THE Iraqi government said yesterday that some rebels had approached it looking for peace terms and repeated its willingness to negotiate with groups which renounced violence and which had not killed Iraqis.

Iraq’s insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi made an audio address to Osama bin Laden today assuring the al-Qaida leader that reports of his wounding had been exaggerated.

Terrorism suspects held in the US Navy prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are being dealt with “humanely” and with “dignity,” the nation’s top military officer says in disputing reported abuses.

The most-wanted terrorist in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been injured, and a statement attributed to his militant group asked Muslims to pray for his recovery, an internet posting said today.

AL-QAIDA terror chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has obtained a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb and is preparing for attack, a US newspaper claimed yesterday.

US forces in Iraq, already implicated in the killing of an Italian secret agent, faced further strains with allies yesterday when Bulgaria said they had probably shot dead one of its soldiers.

A new online magazine purportedly posted by al-Qaida’s affiliate in Iraq has launched an effort to recruit Muslims to rid Iraq of infidels and apostates - its names for Americans and their Iraqi partners.

MILITANTS loyal to Islamic extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who vowed an all-out war against Iraq’s election, claimed more than a dozen suicide attacks against voting stations on polling day.

AL-QAIDA ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi declared war on Iraq’s landmark elections yesterday in a warning intended to scare away voters a week before they go to the polls amid a raging insurgency.

A SUICIDE car bomber killed 14 Shi’ite worshippers as they left a Baghdad mosque yesterday, a Muslim holy day, ratcheting up tension between Iraq’s religious communities just nine days before elections.

US warplanes pounded Fallujah today in what residents called the strongest attacks in months, as more than 10,000 American soldiers and Marines massed for an expected assault on the guerrilla stronghold.

Militant group al-Qaida in Iraq have called for the release of the kidnapped Irish-born executive of the Care charity, Margaret Hassan – and promised to free her if she fell into their hands.

US aircraft blasted the rebel stronghold of Fallujah three times in 24 hours over the weekend in a concerted effort to hit militants loyal to guerrilla chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

AT least five people were killed when a suicide car bomb struck central Baghdad as 44 people died in US air strikes near the insurgent bastion of Fallujah.

A SAN FRANCISCO computer expert duped the international media over the weekend into believing Islamist kidnappers had executed an American hostage in Iraq by staging his own mock beheading on the Internet.

A group of armed masked men threatened today to kill Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, saying that he was murdering innocent Iraqis and defiling the Muslim religion.

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