U.S. keeps heat up as al-Qaida in Iraq issues urgent appeals

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The U.S. military pressed its offensive against al-Qaida in Iraq on Friday, staging an additional 39 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 raids came as al-Qaida issued urgent appeals for money and volunteers to fight U.S. 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 more details of the Wednesday evening airstrike that killed the al-Qaida in Iraq leader, saying al-Zarqawi apparently didn't die until after U.S. forces arrived. By that point, two 500-pound bombs had been dropped on his hide-out 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 heat from the U.S. raids, which have extended beyond Hibhib to include locations in and around Baghdad.

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 al-Zarqawi's death. The raids targeted people the U.S. had been monitoring in the buildup to the strike, which was delayed until al-Zarqawi had been pinpointed because they were giving "indicators at different points in time as to where Zarqawi might be," he said.

An additional 39 raids were conducted Friday, some of them directly related to information obtained in the earlier raids, Caldwell said.

Caldwell said one targeted individual, whom he did not identify, was killed in the latest raids and at least 25 were captured.

Two official statements posted on the Web site used by al-Qaida in Iraq 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 this year as head of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, the umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq.

"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."

With al-Zarqawi gone, it is unlikely al-Qaida will quickly be able to replace him with someone with the same name recognition and appeal to the global Islamist community, experts say. Helped in part by the repeated condemnations of U.S. officials and his own headline-grabbing tactics, such as gruesome, videotaped beheadings of hostages, al-Zarqawi had catapulted to worldwide fame over the past two years.

Caldwell identified Abu Ayub al-Masri, an Egyptian who trained with al-Zarqawi in Afghanistan and who established the first al-Qaida cell in Baghdad in 2002, as the man thought most likely to succeed al-Zarqawi. The U.S. military put a $50,000 price tag on his head in February 2005, but his name has not surfaced on any of the Islamist Web sites.

The military has portrayed the strike against al-Zarqawi as the culmination of weeks of intelligence gathering from multiple sources, including an al-Qaida in Iraq informant.

Caldwell indicated that it was therefore unlikely anyone would receive the $25 million reward offered for al-Zarqawi.

"The information we had was never somebody coming forth and saying, 'At this time at this place you will find Zarqawi in this building,' " he said. "That did not occur."

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."

Al-Zarqawi also appeared to make eye contact with the troops, said another U.S. official, 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 a report on 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 that one child had died, it now appears no children were killed, he said.

The fact that al-Zarqawi appeared to have briefly survived the two explosions is likely 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!"

Across Iraq on Friday, relatively few violent incidents were reported. A curfew imposed on Baghdad and Diyala province — where al-Zarqawi was killed — was extended three more days.

Al-Zarqawi's family said Friday they want to bury him in his hometown, but Jordan vowed the terrorist leader who killed Jordanians in a triple hotel bombing would never "stain" the country's soil.

Al-Zarqawi's family passed out candies to well-wishers who came by the house to celebrate his "martyrdom" — bringing into the open the vein of sympathy that ran through the community even after his clan officially renounced al-Zarqawi last year.

But many seemed conflicted about al-Zarqawi — proud of his fight against U.S. forces many here see as occupiers in Iraq but also angry over his attacks in Jordan.

Information from The Associated Press and The Washington Post

is included in this report.