WashPost: 'Insurgent' Al-Zarqawi Killed in Iraq

June 8th, 2006 11:52 AM

The Washington Post reports that "insurgent" leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in Iraq. Not only that, the group he is a member of, al-Qaeda in Iraq, is labeled an "insurgent group."

There are other groups in Iraq who would fit the label of "insurgent," but by applying them to al-Qaeda, the Post is elevating them to the status of freedom fighters.

-Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the mastermind behind hundreds of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq, was killed early Wednesday by an air strike -northwest of Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Thursday.

Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born high-school dropout whose leadership of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq made him the most wanted man in the country, was killed along with several other people -- including a woman and child -- near the city of Baqubah, the officials said.

U.S. warplanes dropped two 500-pound bombs on a house in which Zarqawi was meeting with other insurgent leaders. A U.S. military spokesman said coalition forces pinpointed Zarqawi's location after weeks of tracking the movements of his spiritual adviser, Sheik Abdul Rahman, who also was killed in the blast.