• With respect to America’s global war on terror, the assassination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
    … is even more significant than the assassination of Osama bin
    Laden would be. Zarqawi is the terrorist responsible for the greatest
    number of casualties in recent years, and therefore, his liquidation
    has operational significance. Bin Laden’s liquidation would have only
    moral significance. – Yossi Melman, Ha’aretz

  • Zarqawi’s death is unlikely to prove the immediate end of either al
    Qaeda in Iraq or the Iraqi insurgency, as Zarqawi was, by his own
    account, only a servant or representative of al Qaeda’s international
    terrorist organization. Yet it must be noted that Zarqawi was also a
    monster of unspeakable proportions. The United States, its coalition
    allies, and the new Iraqi government have much to be thankful for in
    bringing an end to this mass murderer’s career. – Dan Darling, The Weekly Standard

  • Al-Qaeda in Iraq confirmed al-Zarqawi’s death and
    vowed to continue its “holy war,” according to a statement posted on a Web
    site. “We want to give you the joyous news of the martyrdom
    of the mujahed shaikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. “The death of our leaders is life for us. It will only
    increase our persistence in continuing holy war so that the word of God will
    be supreme.” – Al-Jazeerah

  • Now that Abu Musab
    al-Zarqawi is dead, there seems little certainty who will succeed the brutal
    killer … An
    American general thinks it will be
    Egyptian-born,
    Afghanistan-trained Abu
    al-Masri, whose name is an obvious alias, meaning “father of the Egyptian.” –
    Hamza Hendawi, The
    Seattle Post Intelligencer

  • The details of what is perhaps the coalition’s greatest tactical
    success of the war were largely omitted or conspicuously avoided. The
    certainty exuded by [Major] General Caldwell – and the success of the air
    strike – points to a deep penetration into whatever security measures
    Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had relied on to stay alive. – Dan Murphy and Mark Sappenfield, The Christian Monitor
  • Iraqi Prime
    Minister Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said today that the $25 million bounty
    on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s head will be honoured … The
    United States
    had put forth the $25 million bounty for information leading to the death or
    capture of al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in
    Iraq. – The Houston Chronicle
  • Zarqawi was a
    notoriously enigmatic figure – a man who was everywhere yet nowhere
    … Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, barely forty and barely literate, a Bedouin
    from
    the Bani Hassan tribe, was until recently almost unknown outside his
    native Jordan. Then, on February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin
    Powell catapulted him onto the world stage. In his address to the
    United Nations making the case for war in Iraq, Powell identified
    al-Zarqawi – mistakenly, as it turned out – as the crucial link
    between
    al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime. – Mary Anne Weaver, The Atlantic Online

  • There is no question that his death …is a major propaganda coup for the Iraqi government and the the
    US military and a setback for those who regarded Zarqawi as a symbol of
    resistance. But what impact it will actually have on the conflict is
    impossible to predict, an uncertainty born of a figure who was as much
    a myth as a man. We can assume that al-Qaeda in Iraq will attempt
    reprisal attacks as soon as possible, to show it is still in
    business… – Rory Carroll, The Guardian‘s Comment is Free