US Deaths in Iraq Hit 2,500, Wounded at least 18,000
The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq has reached 2,500, the Pentagon said on Thursday, more than three years into a conflict that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said would last no more than six months. But the news came after a senior Iraqi official in Baghdad said his country's security forces had seized al Qaeda in Iraq documents giving key information about the militant group's network and the whereabouts of its leaders. Using words that have been spoken by others before, National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told a televised news conference in the Iraqi capital, "We believe this is the beginning of the end of al Qaeda in Iraq."al-Rubaie said the seizure of documents after the raid that killed Zarqawi provided key information about the militant group and its leaders.
"Now we have the upper hand," he told a news conference in Baghdad.
Zarqawi, the former al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, was killed last week by a US air strike near Baquba, north of Baghdad. al-Rubaie said a pocket hard drive, a laptop and documents were found in the debris after the strike. The documents and records revealed the names and whereabouts of other al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders, he said, adding that more information has since been found in raids on other insurgent hideouts.
"They did not anticipate how powerful the Iraqi security forces are and how the government is on the attack now."
One of the documents showed Zarqawi planned to widen the rift between the US and Iran by carrying out attacks on US interests falsely attributed to Iran, the prime minister's office said. The news comes after tough new security measures were put in place in Baghdad amid fears al-Qaeda in Iraq is preparing new attacks after Zarqawi's killing.
This week tens of thousands of Iraqi and US security forces have been deployed across the capital. Citizens have been stopped and frisked at checkpoints as police enforce a ban on weapons, causing long delays on the roads.
For the time being, there were noticeably fewer reports of violence in Baghdad than usual, though a chemicals worker was reported to have been shot dead in the west of the city.
Conflicting reports name different men as Zarqawi's successor. One names Abu Hamza al-Mujahid, who reportedly vowed to defeat "crusaders and Shias" in Iraq. The Department of Defense calls Abu Ayyub al-Masri the more logical choice.
About al-Zarqawi's probable successor...
* Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian with ties to Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.
* al-Masri is the same person that al-Qaida in Iraq identified in a Web posting last week as its new leader - Abu Hamza al-Muhajer.
* Afghanistan-trained explosives expert and key figure in the al-Qaida in Iraq network with responsibility for facilitating the movement of foreign fighters from Syria into Baghdad.
* A terrorist since 1982, beginning with his involvement in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
- June 15, 2006
Comments
18,000 is the official statistics for our wounded soldiers in Iraq. Most reputable websites say the actual number is close to 50,000 wounded.
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