Was Zarqawi beaten to death by US?
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
Posted online: Monday, June 12, 2006 at 0926 hours IST

LONDON, JUN 11 : A mortally wounded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of the terror wing of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was allegedly beaten to death by US forces after a massive air strike on a safe house in Iraq where the militant was hiding, eye-witnesses say.

Native Iraqis who happened to be on the scene when the airstrike happened, have been quoted as saying that Zarqawi, a dreaded figure for the beheadings and numerous suicide attacks he orchestrated, was still alive when the US troops and Iraqi police drove up to the smouldering wreck of the safe house he was hiding in and was beaten to death by the forces.

Ali Abbas, a young farm labourer told the Sunday Times that he, along with some locals, rushed outside soon after a US aircraft dropped two bombs in north Baghdad and "heard a moan coming from another part of the house (safe house)." They reportedly found Zarqawi, who they did not recognise as Iraq's most wanted terrorist. "There was life in him still. It took seven of us to move him from within the rubble and carry him out about 100 metres." Soon Iraqi and US forces turned up.

"They were shouting and screaming and in a very tense and agitated mood," Abbas said.

"The Americans tore his dishdasha (robe) and they kept on asking him through an interpreter, 'What is your name, what is your name?'," said Abbas addding that the American forces were probably afraid that the militant was wearing a suicide belt.

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