U.S. steps up offensive against al-Zarqawi’s network

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The U.S. military pressed its offensive against al-Qaida in Iraq on Friday, staging an additional 38 raids based mostly on information uncovered during the hunt that led to the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a U.S. airstrike.

The fresh raids came as al-Qaida issued urgent appeals for money and volunteers to fight American forces, a day after the news of al-Zarqawi’s death left the organization without a clearly identifiable leader.

The U.S. military also gave fresh details of the Wednesday evening airstrike that killed al-Zarqawi, saying he appeared initially to have survived the blast of the two 500-pound bombs dropped on his hideout in the small village of Hibhib, just outside Baqouba and about 60 miles north of Baghdad.

The al-Qaida appeals suggested al-Zarqawi’s network may be feeling the heat from the U.S. raids, which have extended beyond Hibhib to include a series of locations in and around Baghdad.

Hoping to capitalize on al-Zarqawi’s death and offer the new Iraqi government a chance for success, President Bush and key American and Iraqi governmental and military leaders will convene a two-day trans-Atlantic summit next week at the Camp David presidential retreat.

No reduction of U.S. military forces in Iraq is expected as a result of the meetings Monday and Tuesday, a senior administration official said Friday. Instead, the White House views this as an opportunity to give the new government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a platform to stake his priorities for the months ahead and plan how the U.S. can help him fulfill his goals.

Both the Bush administration and Iraqi government view the timing of al-Zarqawi’s killing as fortuitous, with al-Maliki predicting Friday that his government will “build on the additional momentum gained” from the successful raid north of Baghdad.

Bush, who has promised that U.S. forces will start to “stand down” as Iraqi forces “stand up,” said this depends on the success of the new government.

“We’ll get a realistic appraisal about the capacity for standing up Iraqi troops as this new government begins to function as a government,” Bush said Friday, speaking from Camp David.

In a video news conference relayed from Baghdad to the Pentagon, spokesman Maj. Gen William Caldwell displayed a suicide belt, explosives and Iraqi army uniforms uncovered in 17 raids conducted in the immediate aftermath of the death of al-Zarqawi. An additional 38 raids were conducted Friday, some of them directly related to information obtained in the earlier raids, Caldwell said, without giving further details.

Two official statements posted on the Web site used by al-Qaida urged Muslims to volunteer to fight in Iraq, saying al-Zarqawi’s death should remind them of their “duty” to fight infidels.

“Iraq is the front line of defense for Islam and Muslims. So, don’t miss this opportunity to join the Mujahedeen and the martyrs,” said one signed by Abdullah Rasheed al-Baghdadi, who succeeded al-Zarqawi earlier this year as head of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, the umbrella group that includes al-Qaida. “This is a compulsory duty for all Muslims in these days,” it said.

Another statement in the name of Hamil al-Rashash (Holder of the Rifle) struck a more desperate note.

“Help, help! Support, support!” it said, addressing the Islamic ummah, or community. “Assistance, assistance! Where is your money? And where are your men? There is no excuse for you.

“America won’t benefit you. History won’t be merciful to you. Wake up before it gets too late and before all the curses of Earth and heaven fall upon you.”

Giving a more detailed account of the raid that killed al-Zarqawi, Caldwell revised his initial assertion that the militant was dead when U.S. forces arrived on the scene. He said the Iraqi police who reached the bombed house first found him barely alive, but still moving, and managed to put him on a stretcher.

When U.S. forces arrived, al-Zarqawi appeared to try to move, but they “resecured him,” Caldwell said. “He mumbled a little something, but it was indistinguishable and it was very short,” Caldwell said.

Al-Zarqawi also appeared to make eye contact with the troops, said Lt. Christina Skacan. “He made what seemed to them to be some kind of eye contact, he rolled a little to the side and then he passed away,” she said.

Asked whether it was possible al-Zarqawi could have been shot to death by the forces that found him, Caldwell said it is still uncertain, though he had seen nothing in the report he had read of the incident to indicate that al-Zarqawi received “wounds from some kind of weapon system.”

Caldwell also said that three women, not one as originally reported, died alongside al-Zarqawi in addition to two males. Contrary to earlier reports he had received that one child had died, it now appears no children were killed, he said.

That al-Zarqawi appeared briefly to have survived the two explosions is likely only to add to the myth surrounding him in the eyes of his followers.

“This is a martyr’s miracle,” said one posting on the al-Qaida Web site. “Tons of bombs … and the face of this lion is still there!”