World

Pentagon: Top Zarqawi Aide Killed

September 27, 2005 / 6:37 AM EDT / CBS/AP

The No. 2 al Qaeda leader in Iraq was killed Sunday night, U.S. officials say. Abu Azzam, reportedly the deputy to Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was shot during a house rain in Baghdad, according to Pentagon officials.

As the aide to Zarqawi, Azzam was reportedly in control of financing foreign fighters coming into Iraq, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

According to Pentagon officials coalition troops raided the house in response to a tip. When Azzam opened fire, these officials say, he was killed with troops' return fire.

What effect this will have on the insurgency remains to be seen. In the past, key Zarqawi lieutenants have been killed or captured without any decrease in the number of suicide bombings.

Also Sunday, at least 33 Iraqis were killed during a day of stepped-up violence. Gunmen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ambushed an Iraqi patrol in an eastern Baghdad slum, and U.S. forces joined a 90-minute gunbattle, killing as many as eight of the attackers in the first significant violence in the neighborhood in nearly a year. There is no word as to whether these partrols were associated with the house raid that led to the killing of Azzam.

In related developments:

CBS News correspondent Lara Logan reports there is a secret, ruthless cleansing of the country's towns and cities as a result of an undeclared civil war between the Sunnis and Shiites. Bodies — blindfolded, bound and executed — just appear, like the rotting corpses of 36 Sunni men that turned up in a dry riverbed south of Baghdad.

CBS News traced 16 of those men to a single street in a Baghdad suburb, where family members showed CBS News how the killers forced their way into their homes in the middle of the night and dragged away their sons and fathers.

A brazen attack on a school killed five teachers. Police say gunmen disguised as police officers snatched the five Shiite teachers and their driver off a minibus leaving the school. Officials say the militants took the victims into the school and shot them in a classroom.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities freed 500 detainees from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison on Monday in a goodwill gesture to Sunnis ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. After a brief ceremony outside the prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, the 500 freed detainees left the area on public buses. They were the first of 1,000 to be freed before Ramadan begins next week, the U.S. military said. Abu Ghraib gained international notoriety after U.S. military personnel running the prison were charged with humiliating and assaulting detainees there.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq Monday in two separate attacks involving roadside bombs, the military said Monday. One of the attacks occurred early in the day in western Baghdad, killing two American soldiers, the military said in a statement. The third U.S. soldier, working with the 42nd Brigade, was killed about 50 miles southeast of Baghdad, the military said.

The Senate would give President Bush $50 billion more for war in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a $440 billion defense spending measure a panel approved Monday. Reflecting a post-Hurricane Katrina debate about the role of the military in domestic affairs, the bill includes the defense appropriations subcommittee's opinion on when the military should get involved in natural disasters.

Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who has used her son's death in Iraq to spur the anti-war movement, was arrested Monday while protesting outside the White House. Sheehan and several dozen other protesters sat down on the sidewalk after marching along the pedestrian walkway on Pennsylvania Avenue. Police warned them three times that they were breaking the law by failing to move along, then began making arrests. Sheehan, 48, was the first taken into custody. She stood up and was led to a police vehicle while protesters chanted, "The whole world is watching."

Prosecutors in Pfc. Lynndie England's prison abuse case portrayed her in closing arguments Monday as an eager participant with a "sick" sense of humor, while defense attorneys described her as a weak-minded pawn trying to appease a sadistic boyfriend. A jury of Army officers was to start deliberating Monday afternoon.

South of the capital, two separate bicycle bombings in town markets killed at least seven people and wounded dozens Sunday.

In Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, three mortar shells landed in a residential district. One shell hit a house, killing seven members of one family, including children, according to police Capt. Laith Muhammed.

On Sunday, gunmen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ambushed an Iraqi patrol in an eastern Baghdad slum, and U.S. forces joined a 90-minute gunbattle, killing as many as eight of the attackers in the first significant violence in the neighborhood in nearly a year.

Al-Sadr's militia, the al-Mahdi Army, was a stubborn problem for American forces until a truce was negotiated about a year ago that let some U.S. troops pull out of Sadr City to join the November assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, west of the capital.

Before the truce, al-Sadr's forces had led unsuccessful but bloody uprisings against coalition forces in Kut and the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, south of Baghdad.

Violence in the poor Shiite district could deepen opposition to the constitution among al-Sadr's supporters, who are bucking mainstream Shiite support for the charter. Shiite unity has been seen as critical for passage of the basic law.

A statement from al-Sadr's office accused U.S. forces of trying to draw them into a battle "aimed at destroying Iraqi towns, particularly those in pro-Sadr areas and .... to prevent al-Sadr followers from voting" in the referendum.

Monday was the first time U.S. and Iraqi officials made such a sizeable Ramadan releases at Abu Ghraib, which was the center of an international scandal after a number of U.S. military personnel were charged with humiliating and assaulting detainees at the facility. The move appeared to be part of an Iraqi government effort to persuade citizens to vote in the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum, particularly the Sunni minority.

Many Sunni leaders and insurgents are calling for a boycott or a "no" vote in the referendum. They say the document would leave Sunnis who were dominant under Saddam but lost power after his ouster with far less power than the country's Kurds and majority Shiites.

If two-thirds of voters in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces reject the charter, a new government must be formed and the process of writing a constitution starts over.

More from CBS News