Zarqawi dead

[weemadando]

[crackpot]Meanwhile, somewhere in the secret underground base in Mecca, Bin Laden, the Prophet Mohammed and Yassir Arafat (yes - he faked his death) are planning their restructure of their Iraqi division which is in disarray following the death of the CEO...[/crackpot]

But in reality, this is great news and really bad news. I'm worried now about the militias being leaderless and getting MORE out of control, if a little less directed.

[thejester]

Well, looks like radical Islam's looking for a new poster boy to succeed Osama.

[theski]

+1.... next up Osama, oh lets say.. sept 9th.. in time for the Elections..

[Surlethe]

Good fucking riddance. Unfortunately, unlike cutting the head off of a conventional enemy, this isn't going to make the insurgents in Iraq crumble and fall; someone's just going to rise and take his place. It's going to be blown out of proportion, and I bet people will be stunned when attacks continue apace in the near future.

[Haminal10]

Good riddance. Its nice to have one peice of good news come out of Iraq. I am skeptical as to how much of an effect this will have on the insurgency, but I guess we will have to wait and see.

[Vympel]

The majority of insurgents are Iraqis, who had little to do with Zarqawi- this isn't like Chechnya where the rebels mostly are/were radicalized Islamic fucks- there, the assassination of their leaders (something something Khattab, for example, killed by KGB-erm-FSB poisoned letter back in 2004, IIRC). This will have little practical effect, but it's good that he's dead.

[NecronLord]

I'm not expecting much military progress from this either but it still makes me happy! Har-har </Nelson>

[salm]

Congrats.

[Chris OFarrell]

Reports are attributing this to an insider who leaked the information about the Safehouse he would be at...


Ten bucks says it was a shiite sleeper who has been slowly working his way up into this position who finally was told to get rid of him.

[Coyote]

Excellent. That guy has been long overdue for his ticket to eternity.

[Gil Hamilton]

According to the conference the military held, Zarqawi met his fate on the receiving end of a pair of 500 pound bombs dropped by the Air Force. Chances are he didn't even get a "Hey, do you hear a whistling noise?" out before he got red carded from the football game of life.

[brianeyci]

The picture they're showing of his face is pretty intact on CNN. I was expecting his face to be totaled like Saddam's sons... he was intact enough so they could visually identify him. Don't know what that means in terms of a 500 lbs bomb though, but Saddam's sons were killed by a TOW missile IIRC.

Brian

[FSTargetDrone]

CNN has been promising to show video of the strike itself from the camera on an F-16. So far, no joy.

Whoever the pilot was, that's a hell of a kill marking to paint on the aircraft.

[Gil Hamilton]

CNN has been promising to show video of the strike itself from the camera on an F-16. So far, no joy.

Whoever the pilot was, that's a hell of a kill marking to paint on the aircraft.

They kind of did at the military briefing, but you could only see it on the general's screen, not a direct feed of the image.

[PrinceofLowLight]

The War Nerd had an good article on just how signifigant Zarqawi was about a year ago.

The more I hear about how Zarqawi's behind all the trouble in Iraq, the more it reminds me of a bad cop movie. Every cop movie has the same plot: they track down Mister Big and the crime ring gets broken. I remember a classic example, the Ninja Turtles movie, where it turns out the man behind a wave of juvenile delinquent crime wave is Shredder, a Ninja godfather. Actually Shredder was pretty cool, especially the thorn claws on his gloves. Not the kind of outfit you'd want to wear when operating heavy machinery, and probably a little hot for those NYC summer scenes, but slick in a WWF kind of way.

Then you read the real crime news and there is no Mister Big. It's a million little muggers and thugs, with no organization at all. Nobody puts that in a script because it's too depressing. If the problem is just one guy, you can beat it by killing or capturing him. If it's a million little nobodies, you're doomed.

So naturally the Pentagon PR ops have been trying to pin the Mr. Big tail on some Arab's ass. First it was Saddam. Everybody was so sure that once we snatched him out of his backyard hole, peace would break out. But attacks went up, not down, after he was captured. So we had to find another Mr Big, and that's how this Zarqawi became America's Most Wanted.

At least Zarqawi's a better nominee than Saddam. He's a real guerrilla operator, with a solid mujahedeen resume: born in Jordan, probably to Palestinian refugee parents, grew up in the town of Zarqa (his alias means "The Guy from Zarqa"), went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets and got radicalized.

You know, what we should have done with all those brave Muslim volunteers who helped boot the Russkies out of Afghanistan was hold a big victory banquet in Kabul, thank them all for their contribution to Liberty:and then nuke the banquet hall. It sounds cold-blooded, but if you want to rule the world you have to do some stuff you won't want to tell your grandkids about.

Those guys had got used to blowing things up in the name of Allah and didn't feel like quitting just because the Russians went home. They went back to their native slums all over the world and started making no end of trouble. It was Afghan mujahedeen vets who taught the Somalis how easy it was to bring down a chopper, even one as well armored as the Blackhawk, by firing RPGs at the tail rotor. It's Afghan vets who form most of the effective Al Qaeda cells around today.

Zarqawi came home to Jordan around 1990, but didn't get the hero's welcome he was expecting. The Jordanians weren't so sentimental about the boys who went to Afghanistan. They threw him in jail. It may not have been due process, but it was a smart move. The dumb part was letting him out, which they did sometime in the late 90s. He hung out in Europe-have you noticed how these Islamic wackos can do whatever they want in Europe? It's like all you have to do is wear a big Taleban beard and an "I heart Jihad" t-shirt, and German or French immigration will wave you through the VIP line.

Zarqawi bounced around Pakistan and Iran, then ended up in northern Iraq working with a small Kurdish terrorist gang. Which suggests he's strictly small-time.

The reason these Jihadi websites keep making such a big fuss about Zarqawi's every move is basically the same one that keeps the Pentagon blaming everything in Iraq except the weather on him. They need a Mr. Big for their propaganda as much as we do. Except their version is a hero, Robin Hood in a greasy skullcap, always outsmarting the big dumb American crusaders. Essentially he's a great fundraising gimmick, a cross-eyed posterboy, for Al Q. They haven't done shit in years, and the only way they can keep the rich donors happy is taking credit for every blast in Iraq.

That may be why Zarqawi's PR men put out that very, very weird press release last week announcing that he'd been wounded in Iraq. If you know the rules of guerrilla war, you had to be shocked by that communique. Information is the only important weapon in this kind of war, and the last thing you want is to keep the enemy updated about where you're leaders are or how they're doing. Ideally the enemy shouldn't even know their names or have their pictures.

Here are a few possible scenarios for the press release:

1. Simple disinformation. In other words, Zarqawi ain't wounded, didn't leave Iraq, and may be doing something major inside Iraq. The release is designed to send the bloodhounds barking off in the wrong direction.

2. Zarqawi is dead. Maybe the news that he was hit got out, and his people are trying to buy time by keeping him "alive" for morale's sake. It's real hard to know when a guerrilla leader's dead. The Pentagon claimed Zarqawi was killed in an air raid in 2004. The Russians have claimed every Chechen leader was killed more times than a Hindu cat. Don't believe a guerrilla death claim any more than you would a guerrilla-war body count. Wait till you see the video:and then wait some more.

3. Not-so-simple disinformation. Maybe he died years ago. Maybe he doesn't exist. The whole Zarqawi business could be a Jihadi/Pentagon internet scam.

4. Small-Time PR. This is my bet: Zarqawi's real, he's been actually wounded, but he just doesn't matter much. He's one of these foreign romantics who get involved in somebody else's war, make a lot of noise, become a pinup star but don't rate among the real leaders.

Like I've said before, foreigners just don't cut it in a guerrilla war. Zarqawi, a Jordanian/Palestinian, can't disappear in an Iraqi crowd. That means most of his time has to be spent surviving. His face has been all over the net for years now, and there's a $25 million bounty on him. Like they say in spy movies, his cover is blown. No way he can be really useful as a guerrilla leader. That job puts you out on the street all day, moving through checkpoints, changing your identity non-stop.

If he's just another Jihadi, how come both sides, Al Q and the Pentagon, have been blowing Zarqawi so hard for all these years? Because both sides want to make the Iraq insurgency a classic Mr Big story. Al Q wants to give its own lame, James-Bond multinational crew credit for what's actually a homegrown, neighborhood-based Iraqi uprising. The Pentagon wants to put a face-an outside agitator's face-on the car bombers. America will do anything to avoid having to face the most obvious fact about Iraq: they hate our guts, all of them. Pasting Zarqawi's face all over the net also hides the fact that our so-called intelligence units still don't know a damn thing about the insurgency. It makes it seem as if we're hot on the trail of the one demon responsible for the whole mess.

Which suits the insurgents just fine. That's the most depressing angle of all on Zarqawi: it's not just the Pentagon and Al Q who are happy to keep him in the spotlight. The real bosses of the insurgency must get down on their knees every night and thank Allah for the Z-man, because he keeps the heat off them.

They're not Mr. Big. There is no Mr Big. They're more like a few thousand Mr. Middles, a whole crowd of ex-officers and clan leaders in every Sunni town or village who have some kind of loose control over some of the insurgents. Not all-there are hundreds of insurgent groups fighting, and nobody controls them all.

But it stands to reason that some of the bigger, more professional networks have real leaders. These guys will turn out to be solid, intelligent men, usually young-20s, early 30s-who get respect in the neighborhood. They'll be homegrown Iraqis with real standing in the clan and tribal networks that really run things in Iraq.

And they'll be anonymous. Guerrilla war kills off the glory-seekers like Zarqawi pretty quickly. The guys who last will be total unknowns, until the new regime gives them their medals when we finally give up on this mess.

They'll be shy by Arab standards, coolheaded types. Contrary to what the dumb-ass press keeps saying, the leaders don't need to "fuel" the insurrection. It's got all the fuel it needs. The Iraqis, not just the Sunnis either, are so pissed-off by now that the real leaders' job is mostly persuading the hotheads to take it slow, plan their attacks.

And when these guys get a little R&R, their favorite TV will be the nightly news, with pictures of this poor fool Zarqawi's beady-eyed face staring at them. They'll be cheering him on, just like the Pentagon boys and Al Qaeda fundraisers in Jakarta and Riyadh and Berlin.

That's the Zarqawi fan club-the weirdest bedfellows since Jackson and Culkin.

http://www.exile.ru/2005-June-03/war_nerd.html

[Durandal]

Not that this will affect the insurgency in any discernible way, but one less religious fanatic / terrorist in the world is always a good thing.

[Darth Wong]

Not that this will affect the insurgency in any discernible way, but one less religious fanatic / terrorist in the world is always a good thing.

Except that I don't think he actually did any of the dirty work himself. His significance was only as a figurehead, and he serves that purpose just as well in death as he did in life.

[Durandal]

Not that this will affect the insurgency in any discernible way, but one less religious fanatic / terrorist in the world is always a good thing.

Except that I don't think he actually did any of the dirty work himself. His significance was only as a figurehead, and he serves that purpose just as well in death as he did in life.

Ever notice how anything seems to embolden these assholes?

Terrorist leader still alive? ALLAH SMILES UPON US!!! KILL THE INFIDELS!!!
Terrorist leader captured? IN ALLAH'S NAME, WE MUST FREE HIM!!!!
Terrorist leader killed? IN ALLAH'S NAME, WE MUST AVENGE HIM!! KILL THE INFIDELS!!!!

[Surlethe]

Ever notice how anything seems to embolden these assholes?

Terrorist leader still alive? ALLAH SMILES UPON US!!! KILL THE INFIDELS!!!
Terrorist leader captured? IN ALLAH'S NAME, WE MUST FREE HIM!!!!
Terrorist leader killed? IN ALLAH'S NAME, WE MUST AVENGE HIM!! KILL THE INFIDELS!!!!

It's freakishly similar to how God always supports Christian fundamentalists:

Gay marriage banned? PRAISE JESUS!!! LET'S GET ABORTION NEXT!!!
Gays getting married in Massachusetts? GOD IS TESTING US!!! OUT WITH THE ACTIVIST JUDGES!!!
Gay marriage amendment defeated? IN JESUS' NAME, GET THEM THE HELL OUT OF OFFICE!!!!

[Trytostaydead]

Excellent. That guy has been long overdue for his ticket to eternity.

I can imagine a meeting between him and his maker, "Wait, you mean slaughtering your creations wasn't the way you wanted to be praised?"

[Sea Skimmer]

Except that I don't think he actually did any of the dirty work himself. His significance was only as a figurehead, and he serves that purpose just as well in death as he did in life.

Actually he routinely released videos of himself personal beheading people, sometimes foreigners, sometimes Iraqi civilians, on one case even a member of a another insurgent group. He also was also personally involved with selecting targets and planning suicide car bombings, which constituted his groups main activity. He was certainly more then a figurehead; but it is indeed unlikely this will have any significant effect.

[Rye]

Not that this will affect the insurgency in any discernible way, but one less religious fanatic / terrorist in the world is always a good thing.

Except that I don't think he actually did any of the dirty work himself. His significance was only as a figurehead, and he serves that purpose just as well in death as he did in life.

He was apparently the person that cut off Ken Bigley's head a while ago. While it's not as dirty as car bombing a bus full of kids or whatever, it still requires some fearsome brutality.

[Surlethe]

While it's not as dirty as car bombing a bus full of kids or whatever, it still requires some fearsome brutality.

One could argue that, on a personal level, it requires more brutality, since car bombing a bus full of kids is an abstract push of a button, while beheading someone with a knife requires you to feel his struggles, hear his screams, and feel every single muscle, artery, and bone you sever.

[dr. what]

Look what Jim Dunnigan posted yesterday

Zarqawi Scheduled for Martyrdom

June 7, 2006: The relationship between terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi and and the mainline al Qaeda leadership continues to deteriorate. Zarqawi's recent audio messages have not only attacked the U.S. and the Shia-dominated government in Iraq, but also Iran. He's even claiming that the U.S., Iran, and Shia in general, are in cahoots to destroy Islam. He has also called for continued attacks against Shia.

Except for his verbal attacks on the U.S. and the Iraqi government, he is almost totally distanced himself from the central leadership. Other al Qaeda leaders have been trying to down play anti-Iranian and anti-Shia rhetoric, and have been strongly discouraging attacks on civilians.

Given that Zarqawi has become a loose cannon and that his actions are handicapping Al Qaeda's efforts, it seems reasonable to expect that an accident may befall him at some point in the near future. If handled right it can be made to look like he went out in a blaze of glory fighting American troops or that he was foully murdered. Either way, al Qaeda gets rid of a problem and gains another "martyr."

linky

Interesting.....

[Master of Ossus]

CNN has the video up. He was, indeed, hit by 500 lb. bombs.

They identified him visually, then confirmed with scars and tattoos and finally by fingerprints.

Enjoy your virgins, fucker.