“We Got Him!”
We got him! Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has sawed the head off his last civilian, as he was killed this morning by an American air strike. Zarqawi’s end was, fittingly, impersonal and delivered from a distance – an appropriate demise for the head of a movement specializing in the roadside bomb.
It’s a great, great day for Iraq and for America. And the joy an the victory belongs solely to those who have stuck by this mission this far, and of course even moreso to those who have carried it out.
Down where the goblins go, below, below below yo ho . . .
UPDATE: The President:
Zarqawi was the operational commander of the terrorist movement in Iraq. He led a campaign of car bombings, assassinations and suicide attacks that has taken the lives of many American forces and thousands of innocent Iraqis. Osama bin Laden called this Jordanian terrorist “the prince of al Qaeda in Iraq.” He called on the terrorists around the world to listen to him and obey him. Zarqawi personally beheaded American hostages and other civilians in Iraq. He masterminded the destruction of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. He was responsible for the assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan, and the bombing of a hotel in Amman.
Through his every action, he sought to defeat America and our coalition partners, and turn Iraq into a safe haven from which al Qaeda could wage its war on free nations. To achieve these ends, he worked to divide Iraqis and incite civil war. And only last week he released an audio tape attacking Iraq’s elected leaders, and denouncing those advocating the end of sectarianism.
Now Zarqawi has met his end, and this violent man will never murder again. Iraqis can be justly proud of their new government and its early steps to improve their security. And Americans can be enormously proud of the men and women of our armed forces, who worked tirelessly with their Iraqi counterparts to track down this brutal terrorist and put him out of business.
The operation against Zarqawi was conducted with courage and professionalism by the finest military in the world. Coalition and Iraqi forces persevered through years of near misses and false leads, and they never gave up. Last night their persistence and determination were rewarded. On behalf of all Americans, I congratulate our troops on this remarkable achievement.
UPDATE: President Bush isn’t the only leader whose taken his lumps for standing tall for liberty and democracy, so let’s give the floor to an ally who has done so at great political cost:
“In Iraq and Afghanistan, al Qaeda has taken a stand,” said the Prime Minister.
“They know that if progress and democracy take root in those two previously failed and terrorized states, then their values of violence and hatred against those who disagree with them will in turn be uprooted.
“That’s why they fight and why they will continue to fight very hard. . . .
“This terrorism is a global movement. Their attack in Iraq has only ever been part of a wider attack that they have carried into conflicts and countries the world over.
“Indeed, there is barely a major nation in the world that has not felt the outreach of their evil.
“Defeat them in Iraq and we will defeat them everywhere.
“We need to do so armed, of course, with weapons, but also with one simple idea — that where people want to live in freedom and be governed by democracy, they should be able to do so and the world should stand united behind them.”
UPDATE: Will Collier makes an excellent point about the intelligence “treasure trove” that was unearthed in 17 simultaneous raids following the Zarqawi strike, which lends much more of an air of a near-final roundup to all of this. I also got an email from CENTCOM with a video of the strike; their server was down but you can see the video here.