Al-Zarqawi alive and seeking partners: report

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.

Citing the leader of a Sunni resistance group who said he recently spent time with Zarqawi, the reports said the insurgent leader wore a suicide belt at all times - even when asleep.

“He told me: ‘I would rather blow myself up and die as a martyr - and kill a few Americans along the way - than be humiliated by them,” Sheikh Abu Omar al-Ansari, leader of the Jeish al Taiifa al Mansoura (Army of the Victorious Sect) group, was quoted as saying.