Zarqawis death shouldnt be minimized.
What truly wonderful news to wake up to!! We'd been looking for him a long time. I'm glad there was enough left of him to identify via fingerprints.. Otherwise, the doubts would have linger.
What's interesting is where they killed him at.. Not in Anbar.. But in Diyala province, near Baqubah.
The entire Diyala province was a stronghold of Saddam's Ba'thist party during his reign:
Under Saddam, Diyala was a major Baath Party enclave. One of the bases now used by U.S. forces east of Baqouba was the explosive ordnance testing center for the Iraqi army.
usatoday.com
But even more interesting is that both Zarqawi and his spiritual advisor were killed in the same bombing. This was a major decapitation of Zarqawi's power base.
Now what is even more interesting, if true, is that Al Qai'da has already named a replacement, Abdallah Bin Rashid al Baghdadi. He's reportedly the head of the Mujahidin Shura Council, to which Zaraqawi was demoted earlier this year to merely "military commander".
Debkafiles is alledging a major argument transpired between Zarqawi and the MSC, primarily represented by Ansar Al-Sunna, and it would appear they have now taken the leading role in the insurgency.
It's possible that Ansar Al-Sunnah leaked the whereabouts of Zarqawi and Abd Al-Rahman for the purpose of eliminating Zarqawi as a rival. No evidence for this, I admit. But it is rather interesting to catch Zarqawi in this fashion with all of his senior lieutenants with him considering how proficient their OPSEC has been in the past.
He had direct control over the sunni terrorists in iraq, jordan and elsewhere. He wont be easily replaced. I think everyone on this thread will shed no tears for him.
As I mentioned above, Zarqawi was falling out of favor and the MSC was taking charge.
All I can say is that I'm glad. It sends a signal that if Zarqawi can be killed, so can the other leaders.
Hawk |
