US Troops Conducted 40 More Counter-Terrorism Raids Last Night In Iraq

The hit on Zarqawi had the side effect of landing us an avalanche of fresh information on the whereabouts of other terrorists:


U.S. troops conducted nearly 40 raids Friday in Iraq, taking advantage of information gleaned from searches following Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's death, a military spokesman said, revealing new information about the man believed to be poised to take the terror leader's place.

U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the military spokesman, also said that al-Zarqawi was alive when Iraqi police arrived at the strike scene and that U.S. forces also saw him alive.

"We did in fact see him alive. There was some kind of movement he had on the stretcher and he died immediately after," Caldwell said. "He mumbled something but it was indistinguishable and it was very short."

He also said U.S. troops conducted 39 raids across Iraq, including some directly related to the information they obtained from the strike against al-Zarqawi.

Those were in addition to 17 raids conducted after the terror leader was killed Wednesday evening.

In the second night of raids, Caldwell said 39 raids were carried out and that "clearly we picked up things like memory sticks, some hard drives" that would allow American forces to begin dismantling al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq. He said it was also helping them understand where the group's weapons and financing were coming from.

But Caldwell also told the British Broadcasting Corp. that he did not think the terrorist organization had been decapitated. "We have no question we dealt it a severe blow, but it can regenerate," he told the BBC. "There are still going to be some difficult times."

In announcing al-Zarqawi's death, Caldwell said the 17 raids had "produced a tremendous amount of information," which he described as a "treasure trove."

He also said they waited to kill al-Zarqawi before carrying out the other raids, in an apparent effort not to spook the Jordanian-born terrorist. "We had identified other targets that we obviously did not go after to allow us to focus on al-Zarqawi. Now that we got him, we will go after them," Caldwell said.