How Iraq's ghost of death was cornered - Sunday Times - Times Online

How Iraq's ghost of death was cornered - Sunday Times - Times Online:

"As they dragged the wounded man (Zarqawi) from the ruins of the house, an ambulance and Iraqi forces turned up, taking the total number of people at the scene to about 14. The men had barely finished placing him in the ambulance when seven US helicopters landed by the house and four Humvees rumbled through the dust.

“They were shouting and screaming and in a very tense and agitated mood,” said Abbas. “They lined us up in a ditch and told us to turn our faces. We thought they were going to execute us. I started reciting koranic verses to myself.” The soldiers then took the wounded man from the back of the ambulance, placing his stretcher on the ground.

“The Americans tore his dishdasha and they kept on asking him through an interpreter, ‘What is your name, what is your name?’,” said Abbas. “They were tearing his dishdasha, not to wrap his head with it as they did later but because they were afraid he might be wearing a suicide belt. They kept shouting, ‘Keep your distance, he may be wearing a suicide belt’.”

He was not. “Under the dishdasha he was wearing only knee-length white undershorts,” said Abbas.

Once the soldiers had established the man was not a threat, they started to kick him in the chest, said Abbas and an Iraqi policeman also there. “They kept kicking him, shouting, ‘What’s your name?’, but the man only moaned and said nothing,” said Abbas.

As the small crowd of Iraqis looked on, the wounded man grew paler and blood oozed from his mouth and nose. It took about a quarter of an hour for him to die from the time when he was removed from the ambulance, Abbas estimated."