Region | Iraq
Al Zarqawi beaten to death?
Al Qaida leader Abu Musab Al Zarqawi may have been beaten to death by US soldiers following an air strike on his safe house.
- Agencies
- Published: 00:00 June 12, 2006
Baghdad: Al Qaida leader Abu Musab Al Zarqawi may have been beaten to death by US soldiers following an air strike on his safe house.
Eyewitnesses claimed to have seen American troops beating a man resembling Al Zarqawi.
An Iraqi man told Associated Press that he saw a bearded man lying on the ground near an irrigation canal, badly wounded but alive.
He said locals then put the man in an ambulance before US forces arrived.
The man, only identified as Mohammad, said, "When the Americans arrived they took him out of the ambulance, they beat him on his stomach and wrapped his head with his dishdasha, then they stomped on his stomach and his chest until he died and blood came out of his nose."
Another witness, Ali Abbas, was reported in the Sunday Times as saying that soldiers kicked a wounded man in the chest until he grew pale and began bleeding from his mouth, before dying.
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General George Casey, the top commander of US troops in Iraq dismissed the claims, saying, "The way I respond to the comments of the alleged Iraqi who saw what went on there is: 'that's baloney.'"
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Casey maintained that Al Zarqawi died while American soldiers were attempting to save his life, with US officials saying the Al Qaida leader mumbled and tried to roll off a stretcher before dying.
US authorities initially claimed Al Zarqawi died in the air strike but then changed their account, saying he survived and died soon after.
A US military autopsy on Al Zarqawi has been finished but officials have not yet released the findings.
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