Al Zarqawi is Dead!

[Wyler]

Swinging Monkey

The second paragraph....obviously!

If you agree with that wish/sentiment then what distinguishes you from the guys whooping it up after the Brit Helicopter was shot down?

I have no problem with this mans death or the manner in which it was done, a great days work.

But, if we then descend to the level of jumping up and down for joy, and wanting to stick it on the internet, it sort of destroys our reasoning for being there.

[WhiteOvies]

Zoom,
I agree that parading a body isn't our way of doing business. Unfortunately, in a world of spin, conspiracy theories and cynics it seems that we need to PROVE the fact that the is actually an ex-terrorist.

Photographs of Mussolini were widely published, as were the remains of Hitler towards the end of WW2 to prove to their forces that it was all over. Unfortunately, insurgents/terrorists don't play to the same rules as a national Army.

[Pass-A-Frozo]

In the words of Nelson off the Simpsons.


NARRRR HARRRRR!!!

[The Swinging Monkey]

wyler,
I take your point to a degree, but I think its about time we started to match like with like. The fact that the crowd were wooping it up after the helo crash shows just how pleased they were. I don't see anything wrong with us doing likewise frankly, and showing these faceless thugs that we are pleased, even delighted, that the $%£"*^ is dead.
I'm sick to death of hearing people like you telling the British and US Forces that we must 'play fair' and that we 'mustn't stoop to their level' Why the hell not? We are not the terrorists, we don't cut off the heads of innocent people. As has been mentioned, ALL is fair in love and war, and I think its perfectly fair to parade this terrorists body all over the place and spread the word in the Arab? world, that the time for playing 'nicely' is over, and we mean business. Well done to the Americans, strike one to the good guys.
OK, rant over. More medication I think
Kind regards to all
TSM

[Stafford]

For the luvvies, it was essential to eliminate Zarqawi like the psychopath he was and demonstrate it clearly to the man in the street in the Arab/muslim world, who is rather less discerning in the newspapers he reads. Fire for effect and f k all the Al Qaeda primitives who are trying desperately to stop the Iraqis gaining their freedom from oppressive fundamentalist Islamists like Z and OBL. As you can see from the perverted videos of beheadings and executions ommitted by AQ, the problem is that they enjoy the killing and have long since passed the point where their objective was credible.

It will ultimately be up to the Iraqis to solve their centuries old Sunni/Shia disputes and claims, but the death of Zarqawi is a very positive step to create the conditions required for the dialogue to begin in earnest.

Like the job description for successive bosses of Hamas, I think the vacancy created by the joint efforts of all concerned carries a minimal pension and puts the terrorist on the defensive.

[Wyler]

Swinging Monkey

'People like me'?? errrm, I am in the British Forces and I have done my share out in the Middle East thanks.
My only point is we need to be able to distinguish ourselves from the yelling morons on the street. If we do not then no prizes for guessing we will be there for a very long time to come, with not much of a result.

[FFP]

Originally Posted by Winco

3.4, FFP & Pontius, for Christs sake gentlemen, wake up. This IS good news you know. You do pi$$ me off.
The Winco

Eh ?

Come again mate ?

What part of my "Glad the scum got schwacked" did you misinterpret as my sorrow for his death ?

Pontius made a fair point presumably playing devils advocate and the rest of us acknowledged that whilst saying at the end of the day, we're just glad he's gone.

Or maybe you'd like to check what others have written before you go windmilling in next time ?

[Widger]

Well I am utterly disappointed with most of the replies here, on what is supposed to be a more mature website. Most of the replies have been like the wolves baying for blood and is exactly the sort of attitude that has made Iraq the mess it is now. I agree that Abu Musab Al Zarqawi deserved to be brought to account for his crimes and I also agree somewhat with the "live by the sword die by the sword" philosphy. However, I have problems with the method of his dispatch. The use of F16s to take out his hideout was somewhat of a hammer to crack a nut. What no-one on here has mentioned that there were five other people including a woman and a child killed in the attack. What is the justification for the child's death? There is so much outrage at troops shoving rioters in canals or giving them a hiding, that is seems extremely perverse that all sense of justice seems to go right out of the window, when it involves "taking out" a high profile target! That child was someones son or daughter. There will be people greiving for it's loss, with further hatred for those who committed the act. Do we never learn?

[Lafyar Cokov]

The Yanks have been after AMZ for a while - they have tried using door-kickers, and come off decidedly badly losing some good guys in the process. We are fighting the insurgency on "asymetric" terms (God help me for falling into Staff College phraseology!!). AQ-I etc use the environment in Iraq to their advantage, the Americans had to use their overwhelming firepower to thiers. Unfortunately there was collateral damage and the deaths of 'innocents' is very regrettable - however everyone in Iraq knows of the threat to AMZ - I don't think I'd have allowed him into my house with my kids in it if I'd had the opportunity to turn it down!!

As far as parading the body - I beleive it was essential to show the Arab world undeniable proof that AMZ was dead at the earliest opportunity to quash any chance of AQ-I denying that he'd been killed.

Just my 1.5p (After Defence Price Restructuring)

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by Widger

However, I have problems with the method of his dispatch.

Winco, you missed my point. My point was simply that questions will probably be asked. As Widger is indeed asking.

If you read today's Daily Telegraph, page 4, Francis Harris,

"But in the end, the risk of Zarqawi escaping was judged too high."

If that is not a perfectly valid statement to avert the lefty cheese pairing lefties then I don't know what is. My post was simply to note that that question would be asked. It was and it has been answered.

As far as publishing his photograph then it was necessary given the need in that part of the world for positive evidence. Mind you I would have visited Madam Tousauds some time ago just to ensure I had a good enough photograph

[WhiteOvies]

It now seems that he wasn't quite dead when they pulled him out of the building. One for the conspiracy theorists to ponder if he died from injuries sustained by the bombs or from something else sustained from the Iraqi Police.
Not that it really matters either way. Good riddance and I hope it does make a difference.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/5064590.stm

[brickhistory]

"But I'm not dead yet!"

"Shut up, yes, you are!"

[Violet Club]

The bombs in question

One GBU-12 followed by one GBU-38.

VC

[And Then]

Fitting near the 25th aniversary of Orisak.



Air veterans remember reactor raid
Amid speculation of a future US or Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear plants, Israel this week recalled its successful attack on Iraq's facility 25 years ago. Abraham Rabinovich reports from Jerusalem

June 10, 2006
THE pilots were told to prepare for the longest combat mission they had ever flown -- about 1000km to target - but they were not told what the target was or where.

Afterwards, using a string to measure the distance on a map scale, they placed one end on their air base and swivelled the other end in a 360 degree arc. There was little more than desert and sea for most of the arc but to the east the string rested right on Baghdad. There was only one target in that area worth an act of war.

Recently, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor, a group of Israeli pilots gathered in Tel Aviv to reminisce about the operation that denied Saddam Hussein a nuclear weapon and would, for some of the pilots, make everything that happened in their lives afterwards an anticlimax.

The Israeli government had monitored Iraq's nuclear development program in the 1970s with mounting concern. Attempts to persuade France to desist from building a reactor for Saddam were fruitless.

Then-prime minister Menachem Begin was determined that Iraq must not be permitted to possess a weapon that could destroy the Jewish state. In heated internal debates, the proposal to attack the Osirak nuclear facilities being built just south of Baghdad was supported by some ministers, particularly by then agriculture minister Ariel Sharon (now the gravely ill former prime minister), but opposed by others.

Also in opposition were the head of the intelligence and covert-action agency Mossad and the head of military intelligence. It was not at all certain, the opponents said, that Iraqi scientists could put a bomb together, despite the reactor. What was certain was the condemnation that would fall on Israel, from Washington and elsewhere, if it launched an unprovoked air attack on another country.

In May 1979, an explosion set off by the Mossad in a warehouse in a French Mediterranean port succeeded in damaging a critical part of the reactor being shipped to Iraq. The action delayed the Iraqi program by several months but did not derail it.

Although the Israeli government had not yet made a decision about attacking the reactor, air force planning for the strike went forward. The mission was designated for newly-purchased F-16 aircraft that began to arrive from the US in the northern summer of 1980. As the first two squadrons were formed, their commanders were told to start training for an unspecified long-range mission.

Israeli pilots were accustomed to brief forays against enemy targets just across the border, not to flights that lasted hours and required long-range navigation. Israeli airspace was too limited for such exercises so the squadrons undertook flights from the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, then in Israeli hands, almost to the Lebanese border and back.

After some months the squadrons were told to begin training in attacking a ground target. The mission aroused little enthusiasm among the pilots. "We were interested in dogfights," says General Amos Yadlin, who today heads Israel's military intelligence. Almost all the pilots were veterans of the heavy air battles of the Yom Kippur War seven years earlier.

The combat range of the F-16 was 885km: longer than that of any other fighter plane in Israel's air fleet, but not quite long enough. To gain the extra distance needed to reach Baghdad, the mission planners lightened the planes by stripping electronic devices and other equipment.

Intensive training went on for almost a year, with endless bombing runs on circles drawn in the desert and simulated attacks on domed structures inside Israel. Emphasis was placed on precision because, for operational reasons, they would be using "dumb" bombs dependent on the pilot's aim, not smart bombs guided electronically to the target.

Israeli intelligence reported that the reactor would probably be activated in June 1981. An attack after that was ruled out because it could cause radioactive fallout, endangering Baghdad. Begin summoned a meeting of his security cabinet on March 15.

To help persuade those ministers still hesitant about the operation, he also invited air force commander General David Ivri, and the squadron commander who would lead the raid, Lieutenant-Colonel Ze'ev Raz, 34. It was Raz's self-assured responses to their questions that convinced the last holdouts that the operation was feasible. The attack was set for May 10.

Briefed for the first time about their target, the pilots were awed. No nuclear reactor, as far as they knew, had ever been bombed before. Nor had Israeli warplanes ever attacked such a distant target, or one presumed to be so heavily guarded. Iran, whose eight-year war with Iraq had begun the previous year, had attacked the nuclear facility a few months before with two Phantoms and hit some auxiliary buildings but not the reactor.

The Iraqis had responded by bringing in still more surface-to-air missiles and rapid-fire, anti-aircraft batteries. In the Yom Kippur War, Israel had lost 100 warplanes to such defences and almost all of the pilots in the attack force had seen comrades go down. The official estimate was that one or two aircraft in the eight-plane attack force would not make it back.

The night before the planned attack, Begin received a note from Opposition leader Shimon Peres calling on him to cancel the mission for fear that Israel would be spurned by the international community and isolated "like a tree in the desert".

Alarmed that someone who had not been privy to the plan knew about it, Begin called off the mission.

"That was one of the happiest moments in my life," recalls one of the pilots, Relik Shafir, of the notification that the mission was scrubbed. "I could see it in the faces of the others too." This instinctive relief, however, quickly gave way to frustration. The pilots were deeply apprehensive about what awaited them over Baghdad but none really wanted to miss it.

Begin had not given up on the attack but decided to confine any decision about a new date to a three-man committee: himself, Sharon and foreign minister Yitzhak Shamir. When it became clear that the leak had not gone beyond Peres, a new attack date was set for Sunday, June 7. At a dance party at the Ramat David Airbase in northern Israel, where the F-16 squadrons were stationed, one of the pilots saw the base commander summoned to a phone. After a brief conversation, the latter turned to him and gave a thumbs up.

On June 5, the men flew their planes down to the Etzion air base in northeast Sinai, from where the attack would be launched.

In the final briefing on Sunday morning, they were shown enlarged ground-level photographs of their target and the surrounding missile emplacements supplied by the Mossad. In addition to the eight F-16s that would carry out the bombing, six F-15s would provide support by positioning themselves between the attack force and Iraqi air bases and by serving as communication links. Rescue helicopters would be on standby inside Israel but if any plane went down deep inside Iraq, chances of rescue were almost nil.

The pilots were provided with escape kits that included a pistol and Iraqi money. Using one or the other, they could try to make their way to the border with Jordan, close enough for rescue teams to reach them.

Intelligence said the pilots could expect heavy anti-aircraft and missile fire. There were also reports that the Iraqis had surrounded the site with barrage balloons to thwart low-level attacks. The planes, each armed with two 908kg bombs, would fly just 100 feet (30m) above the desert floor almost all the way to Baghdad to foil enemy radar, rising up only as they approached the target for the final run. Radio silence would be strictly maintained except for one-word position reports to be issued by flight leader Raz at three intervals along the way. Raz would lead with four planes from his squadron. Three kilometres behind him would come Lieutenant-Colonel Amir Nahumi, commander of the second squadron, with his team. The planes would attack at 30-second intervals.

One of the pilots flying with Nahumi was Colonel Iftach Spector, an ace with 17 kills.

Spector was not a member of Nahumi's squadron. Indeed, he was commander of the base at which the F-16s were stationed and outranked all other members of the team, including Raz. He had insisted on being included in the mission, even in a subordinate position. To the resentment of other pilots, he went over the heads of Raz and air force commander Ivri to chief-of-staff Rafael Eitan, who bowed to his request, forcing one of the other pilots to step down.

The rearmost plane was piloted by Captain Ilan Ramon, 27, the youngest of the pilots and the only one never to have been in combat. As the only bachelor in the group, he had volunteered for the No.8 slot, the most dangerous, since he would be diving when the defenders were fully alert and aware of the direction of the attack. The pilots were motivated by a feeling that they were sparing Israel the possibility of another Holocaust. As navigation officer for the operation, it was he who had laid out the route to target and back.

When the pilots had bedded down in the same dormitory room the night before, they exchanged doomsday jokes and speculated who among them would most likely be hung in the central square of Baghdad after being downed. The older men decided to bestow the honour on Ramon. Startled, he asked why.

"You're No.8 and you're only a captain," they explained.

It was a moment before Ramon joined in the guffaws.

Chief-of-staff Eitan, who attended the briefing, also attempted to lighten the tension with dark humour. Offering a bag of dates to the pilots, he suggested they get used to eating them because "that's what they eat there" - that is, in Iraqi prisons.

The apprehension that gripped the pilots gave way as they climbed aboard their aircraft and began checking systems. There was simply no time any more for worry.

Raz's F-16 led the way down the runway, struggling to lift into the air beneath the weight of fuel and bombs. It was 4pm. They would reach their target when there was enough light to see it but darkness would cloak them on their way back.

Passing over the Jordanian port of Aqaba, the pilots saw a luxurious yacht just below. It was King Hussein's and the Jordanian monarch, himself a fighter pilot, happened to be aboard. He mistook the planes for Skyhawks but the bombs under the planes' wings and the direction of flight left little question in his mind about where they were headed. Hussein would tell Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin years later that he had called the commander of the Jordanian air force and asked him to notify the Iraqis that Israeli planes were on their way to attack the reactor.

For the next hour, the planes crossed the endless deserts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq, passing only infrequently over a road or any other sign of civilisation. Thundering towards Baghdad just above the desert floor, they were invisible to radar and human eye except for scattered Bedouins whose appearance in the vast wasteland was as amazing to the pilots as the warplanes passing overhead presumably were to the Bedouins.

Three-quarters of the way, Raz shifted course to the north, aiming for a large lake about 100km west of the reactor. The planners had designated a small island in the middle of the lake as the IP, or initial point, where the planes would commence their run on the target. Here they would make their final navigation fix and begin to count down to the point at which they executed "pop-up", quickly rising to altitude and then diving to attack. The pilots had strict orders that there would be only one run on the target and no second passes.

The planes were on the right course and the Osirak dome could already be seen in the distance, together with ancillary structures and the wall of the compound surrounding them. The planes were only about 6km away and amazingly their sensors gave no indication that the Iraqi air defences were being activated. Nor were there any barrage balloons. Raz pulled the nose of his plane up and reached about 5000 feet before turning to dive.

To his horror, he realised that he was off target. Thrown by the missing IP, he had overflown the pop-up point by 800m.

Yadlin, his wingman, had seen Raz's mistake. Pulling up at the proper point, he did not wait for Raz to correct himself but dove straight for the reactor. At 3500 feet, with the dome filling his sights, he released his bombs and pulled up. As he soared skyward on his afterburner, he looked back and saw both bombs penetrate the dome.

Raz, meanwhile, had made a remarkable recovery, putting his plane into a backward loop from which he emerged perfectly aligned for a run on the target. His bombs followed Yadlin's into the depths of the reactor. All four bombs of the lead team had been armed with delayed fuses to prevent causing an immediate blossom of smoke that would shield the target from the planes following.

The sky was beginning to fill with anti-aircraft fire as the next pair attacked. Then, Nahumi, 30 seconds behind, followed with his wingmate, Spector. The latter had been fighting a flu for the past day without telling anyone. It caught up with him now. As he dove, he felt dizzy and would later believe he had a brief blackout. He recovered and released his bombs but it was clear that he had missed.

Numbers seven and eight followed, diving into the thickening puffs of anti-aircraft fire and contrails of shoulder-held Strella missiles. The reactor was a seething mass of smoke and flames when they dropped their bombs into the cauldron and pulled up. As the planes levelled off at 35,000 feet and turned west, the jubilant pilots reported in to Raz with their code designations.

One pilot, however, did not report: Ramon. Raz searched the darkening sky but could not see his plane. Switching on his radio, he called: "Blue Eight, Blue Eight. Check in." Ramon, trailing behind, digesting the incredible experience of his first combat mission, snapped out of his reverie. "Blue Eight joining up," he said.

The mission had gone better than anyone could have imagined. Seven of the planes had put both of their bombs into the reactor. Only Spector had missed, but his bombs were not needed. The warning by Hussein had not been acted on by the Iraqis.

According to reports the Israelis would later hear, the officer in charge of air defence at the installation had gone into Baghdad for the afternoon and could not be reached. The same reports said that Saddam had the officer hanged.

Although conventional anti-aircraft fire was heavy, if somewhat belated, none of the formidable SAM missiles appears to have been fired.

Almost four hours after take-off, the planes touched down in darkness at Etzion air base. Ramon and his squadron leader, Nahumi, embraced on the tarmac, holding each other for a long time without saying a word. "No one thought we would all make it back," Raz would say afterwards.

As suggested by the joshing the night before the attack, Ramon would be the first of the group to die, but it would happen 22 years later when he was an astronaut on the ill-fated mission of the space shuttle Columbia.

At their gathering in Tel Aviv in May this year, none of the pilots who attacked the Iraqi reactor would recommend a similar attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Some said the option existed but that it was best not to talk about it. Some, such as Raz, now a sales executive, believe it is not possible to solve the problem with an air attack, given the wide dispersal of the Iranian facilities and their burial underground. Asked whether he would nevertheless be prepared to participate in such an attack if requested, he said: "Two years ago I rode a ferris wheel and got dizzy. I tried it again and the same thing happened. I realised I'm past the age."

[Flatus Veteranus]

Originally Posted by Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

but I thought that was the whole point of everything we had done over there.

I thought we were there to show the triumph of law over anarchy and democracy over tyrrany.

Funny, I thought we were there to eliminate an immediate WMD threat to UK and its overseas facilities and dependants.

And since when has it been contrary to UK law to kill someone resisting or evading arrest for serious crimes when arrest is impracticable? Would you have been prepared to go in and clap on the manacles?

[Maple 01]

Most of the replies have been like the wolves baying for blood and is exactly the sort of attitude that has made Iraq the mess it is now.

Sorry you feel that way Widger, as one of the blokes that daily had to wade through the reports of the actions of this phoney cleric and his supporters all I can say is that I hope he rots in hell and died in excruciating agony, having choked to death on a pork sandwich he'd been force-feed whilst being repeatedly beaten with old shoes and pi**ed on - but then I can get just as medieval as the next fanatic if I put my mind to it. Difference is I wouldn’t act on it – he was happy to behead a hostage for the cameras so no bleeding-heart concern for him or his rights as a human being please

Strangely enough I don’t hold myself, or anyone who feels the same way, responsible for the mess Iraq may be in, I reserve my bile for the ‘insurgents’ - a combination of criminal bands, religious nutters and disenfranchised Saddam supporters and the hand-wringing western media who seem so quick to support them with anti-coalition propaganda – but then again I’ve read the reports…….

In the words of my least favourite Prime Minister “Rejoice, just rejoice”

[SASless]

Today's reports state Zarq had time to recognize the troops standing around him were American. Oh, if it were only true they were showing him the flag patches on their uniforms while they were piddling on him. One can dream I guess.

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!]

And since when has it been contrary to UK law to kill someone resisting or evading arrest for serious crimes when arrest is impracticable?

not being a scholar of the law, I am unable to answer that, but my comment of

but I thought that was the whole point of everything we had done over there.

I thought we were there to show the triumph of law over anarchy and democracy over tyrrany.

was written in response to your saying

Getting someone to swing from a rope these days, in the era of "Human Rights", seems to have become an inordinately time-and-money-consuming process. Look at the farcical "due process" being applied to Saddam! It must be costing the West millions.

It may have cost millions, but nobody really seems to care how much any of this costs. My point is we are either the same as, or different from the people we are fighting, and if we are not different from them I just don't see why we bother.

[BEagle]

Perhaps the debrief to the F-16 pilots went along the lines of:

"Err, guys - you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"

That pinko left-wing TV channel known as Fox News reported that the PoS al-Zarqawi allegedly mumbled something and tried to roll off the stretcher he was on.

Perhaps he said "OK - where are all the virgins I was promised? Oh, bugger!"

Doubtless the pointy-tailed bloke with the horns is busy jabbing a toasting fork up al-Zarqawi's worthless ar$e right now....

"Ah hello! It's nice to see you here. As you will have probably realised by now, this is Hell, and I am the Devil, good evening, but you can call me Toby, if you like. We try to keep things informal here, as well as infernal. That's just a little joke of mine. I tell it every time.

Now, you're here for..... Eternity! Ooh, which I hardly need tell you is a bugger of a long time......"

With acknowledgements to Rowan Atkinson

[Pontius Navigator]

Mrs PN was quite upset when she heard he had been killed.


She cheered up when she found out he had survived long enough to know he was going to die.