Is Terror Leader Al-Zarqawi Dead?
U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al Qaeda members died in a gunfight — some by their own hand to avoid capture. A U.S. official said Sunday that efforts were under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.
Insurgents, meanwhile, killed an American soldier and a Marine in separate attacks over the weekend, while a British soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in the south.
In Washington, a U.S. official said the identities of the terror suspects killed in the Saturday raid was unknown. Asked if they could include al-Zarqawi, the official replied: "There are efforts under way to determine if he was killed."
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports there is no hard forensic evidence to confirm al-Zaraqwi's death. The claim has been made on Web sites out of the Middle East, but those sites have been wrong before, he says.
Martin reports that once the Mosul house was surrounded, insurgents blew themselves up, filling the house with body parts and charred flesh. U.S. troops have taken the flesh and blood samples
On Saturday, police Brig. Gen. Said Ahmed al-Jubouri said the raid was launched after a tip that top al Qaeda operatives, possibly including al-Zarqawi, were in the house in the northeastern part of the city.
During the intense gunbattle that followed, three insurgents detonated explosives and killed themselves to avoid capture, Iraqi officials said. Eleven Americans were wounded, the U.S. military said. Such intense resistance often suggests an attempt to defend a high-value target.
American soldiers controlled the site Sunday, and residents said helicopters flew over the area throughout the day. Some residents said the tight security was reminiscent of the July 2003 operation in which Saddam Hussein's sons, Odai and Qusai, were killed in Mosul.
In other developments:
The "special voting" will take place on Dec. 12, Farid Ayar said. The rest of the country will vote on Dec. 15 for legislators who will serve for four years, he said.
The Pentagon has said it plans to scale back troop strength to its pre-election baseline of 138,000, depending on conditions. Rumsfeld said the U.S.-led coalition continues to make progress in training Iraqi security forces, which he placed at 212,000.
Rumsfeld also said talk in the United States of a quick withdrawal from Iraq plays into the hands of the insurgents.
The elusive al-Zarqawi has narrowly escaped capture in the past. U.S. forces said they nearly caught him in a February 2005 raid that recovered his computer.
In May, the group said he was wounded in fighting and was taken out of the country for treatment. Within days, it reported he had returned — though there was never any independent confirmation that he was wounded.
The U.S. soldier killed Sunday near the capital was assigned to the Army's Task Force Baghdad and was hit by small arms fire, the military said. The Marine, assigned to Regimental Combat Team 8, 2nd Marine Division, died of wounds suffered the day before in Karmah, a village outside Fallujah to the west of the capital.
In the southern city of Basra, a roadside bomb killed a British soldier and wounded four others, the British Ministry of Defense said. The ministry said 98 British soldiers have died in the Iraq conflict.
The U.S. military also said Sunday that 24 people — including another Marine and 15 civilians — were killed the day before in an ambush on a joint U.S. Iraqi patrol in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad in the volatile Euphrates River valley.
According to the U.S. statement, the attack began Saturday with a roadside bomb detonating next to the Marine's vehicle, followed by a heavy volley of fire from insurgents.
"Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another," the statement said.
CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier reports that insurgents are planting more and more roadside bombs, killing soldiers at a rate of about three a day — a rate that hasn't been that high since last winter. Commanders say it's a deadly race
The three American deaths brought to at least 2,093 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Meanwhile, four women were killed Sunday night when gunmen stormed their home in a Christian district of eastern Baghdad, police said, adding that valuables were stolen and the motive for the attack appeared to have been robbery.
The latest deaths occurred at the end of a violent three-day period in which at least 140 Iraqi civilians died in a series of bombings and suicide attacks — most targeting Shiite Muslims.
The victims included 76 people who died Friday in near-simultaneous suicide bombings at two Shiite mosques in Khanaqin and 36 more killed the next day by a suicide car bomber who detonated his vehicle amid mourners at a Shiite funeral north of the capital.