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U.S. hopes autopsy ends rumors about al-Zarqawi's death Liz Sly / Chicago Tribune | June 11 2006 BAGHDAD -- U.S. military pathologists are performing an autopsy on the body of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to determine the cause of his death, officials said Saturday, as the military again revised details of its account of the strike that killed Iraq's most wanted insurgent. Two doctors were flown to Baghdad to conduct the autopsy after reports that al-Zarqawi was still alive when U.S. forces first reached him raised questions about the circumstances under which the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq died in the American air strike Wednesday. "To determine exactly how he died is very important," military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said in Baghdad, adding that not conducting an autopsy would be "irresponsible." Caldwell also confirmed that a child was among the five others killed in the air strike. The military initially said a child was killed and then that three women and three men were killed, but no children. Clarifying that again, Caldwell said: "There was a child" between 5 and 7 years old. The military had also said al-Zarqawi had been killed outright in the raid, but Caldwell said there was no intent to mislead. In any engagement in which lives are at risk, he said, "the first account is not going to be 100 percent accurate." The fact that al-Zarqawi managed to survive the impact of 1,000 pounds of explosives dropped directly on his house and that the photograph of his battered face released by the military showed him largely unscathed has stirred rumors and conspiracy theories in the Iraqi media. However, Caldwell said there was no reason to believe al-Zarqawi had been shot, either by the Iraqi police who reached the scene first or by the U.S. forces that arrived shortly after. "Were there any gunshot wounds to his body? No, there were not," he said. Further questions were raised by the account of a man interviewed by Associated Press Television News and The Washington Post who said he saw American soldiers beating al-Zarqawi after they arrived at the scene. "He was still alive. We put him in the ambulance, but when the Americans arrived they took him out of the ambulance, they beat him on his stomach . . . then they stomped on his stomach and his chest until he died and blood came out of his nose," AP quoted the man, identified only as Mohammed, as saying. One of the men killed in the raid was an aide to al-Zarqawi identified by the U.S. as Sheik Abdul Rahman, al-Zarqawi's spiritual adviser. The American military said it had been tracking Rahman's movements, and he unwittingly led U.S. forces to al-Zarqawi's hideout in the tiny village of Hibhib outside Baqouba. "We had been able to establish a pattern that when al-Rahman did certain things he would be having a meeting with Zarqawi," Caldwell said. "We didn't know that was the house he was going to, but all the indications were that a meeting was taking place . . . that Zarqawi must be in the house." On Saturday, more than 20 Iraqis were reported dead in bombings and shootings around the country, including nine killed in a car bombing at a Shiite mosque in Baghdad's Karradah neighborhood. The insurgent group Ansar al-Sunnah posted on the Internet a gruesome video showing militants interrogating and then beheading three Iraqis said to be members of a Shiite death squad that killed Sunnis, The Associated Press reported. The group did not say when the video was made. The U.S. military also reported the death of an American soldier in a roadside bombing west of Kirkuk on Friday. ---------------------------------------------------
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