Spiritual adviser led military to safehouse

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

Intelligence officials identified the deputy, Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi, several weeks ago with help from within the al-Zarqawi network, US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell told reporters in Baghdad.

“Through a painstaking intelligence effort, we were able to start tracking him, monitor his movements and establish when he was doing his link-up with al-Zarqawi,” Maj Gen Caldwell said.

“Last night he made a link-up again at 6.15, at which time a decision was made to go ahead and strike that target and eliminate both of them,” he said.

He showed the press conference a picture of al-Zarqawi after he was killed and a videotape of an attack in which he said F-16 fighter jets dropped two 500lb bombs on the site.

“We had absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Zarqawi was in the house,” the general added.

An al-Qaida statement issued yesterday confirming al-Zarqawi’s death and vowing to continue “holy war” was signed by Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi, with the title of deputy emir of al-Zarqawi’s group al-Qaida in Iraq.

It was not known whether the name was put on the statement to suggest al-Iraqi was still alive.

Maj Gen Caldwell and the top US commander in Iraq, General George Casey both told reporters that al-Iraqi was among those killed in the airstrike.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said a serious effort had been under way to find al-Zarqawi after a location was pinpointed when he appeared in a videotape in late April.

The US attack took place

just east of Baqouba, the provincial capital of Diyala, which is 30 miles north-east of Baghdad.

Baqouba has in recent weeks seen a surge in sectarian violence, including the discovery of 17 severed heads. It was also near the site of a sectarian atrocity last week in which masked gunmen killed 21 Shi’ites, including a dozen students.

A Jordanian official said, with the help of its sources inside Iraq, Jordan had provided the US military with information that helped to track down and kill al-Zarqawi. The official would not elaborate.

Jordan also analysed a videotape issued by al-Zarqawi in April and helped pinpoint where it was filmed, the official said.

The video showed images of al-Zarqawi standing in a desert landscape, firing a machine gun.

When the video came out, observers said the flat desert setting resembled parts of Iraq’s Anbar province, to the west of Diyala province.