Soldiers search Baghdad hospital for al-Zarqawi clues

US forces searched a hospital in central Iraq after receiving a tip from an informant about possible terrorist activities there related to Iraq’s most wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an official said today.

No insurgents were found during last week’s search of the hospital in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, said Lt Col Steven Boylan, a spokesman for US forces in Iraq.

“We had received a tip … that terrorist elements were there. We felt it was credible enough to act upon. We searched the hospital and came up with no detainees. I can’t discuss who especially we were going after,” Boylan said in Baghdad.

In Washington, a US defence official said US officials had been alerted to ”possible terrorist activities related to” al-Zarqawi ”in and around” the hospital. He confirmed that no-one was detained by American forces there.

The Washington Post reported today that the US military is looking into reports that al-Zarqawi was present at the hospital and the possibility that he may be ill or wounded.

Officials did not specify to the paper why they thought this might be the case. But the Post reported that al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaida in Iraq group had posted a statement at two mosques, including one in Ramadi, saying he was at the hospital during the April 28 raid but escaped capture.

Ramadi residents said they had seen no such statements.

Another official in Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, said today that it would be inappropriate to say publicly whether US officials believe al-Zarqawi is ill or injured because that information could complicate efforts to capture him.

Al-Qaida in Iraq has claimed responsibility for numerous high-profile kidnappings, bombings and other attacks since Saddam Hussein was driven from power in 2003. The United States has offered a €19.4m reward for information leading to al-Zarqawi’s arrest.

US forces believe they just missed capturing al-Zarqawi during a raid in Iraq in February that netted two of his associates and a computer thought to belong to al-Zarqawi.

The Washington Post quoted unidentified US military authorities as saying al-Zarqawi left medical information about himself on the laptop that was seized on February 20.

But Boylan said: “We have no information at all whether (al-Zarqawi) is ill or wounded. He is a primary target for us to capture or kill. We’ll do everything we can to get him.”