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Iraq

Raid in Iraq starts rumors of terrorist leader's death

BAGHDAD - U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight - some by their own hand to avoid capture. The White House said Sunday that it was "highly unlikely" that the terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.

Insurgents, meanwhile, killed an American soldier and a Marine in separate attacks over the weekend, and a British soldier was killed by a roadside bomb.

On Saturday, police Brig. Gen. Said Ahmed al-Jubouri said the raid was launched after a tip that top al-Qaida operatives, possibly including Zarqawi, were in the house.

During the intense gunbattle that followed, three insurgents detonated explosives and killed themselves to avoid capture, Iraqi officials said. Eleven Americans were wounded, the U.S. military said. Such intense resistance often suggests an attempt to defend a high-value target.

But Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said reports of Zarqawi's death were "highly unlikely and not credible."

American soldiers controlled the site Sunday, and residents said helicopters flew over the area throughout the day.

Some residents said the tight security was reminiscent of the July 2003 operation in which Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed in Mosul.

The elusive Zarqawi has narrowly escaped capture in the past. U.S. forces said they nearly caught him in a February raid that recovered his computer.

In May, the group said he was wounded in fighting and was taken out of the country for treatment. Within days, it reported he had returned - though there was never any independent confirmation that he was wounded.

Family members of Jordanian-born Zarqawi renounced the terrorist leader Sunday after his al-Qaida in Iraq group claimed responsibility for the Nov. 9 suicide attacks on three Amman hotels that killed 59 people.

The family of Zarqawi, whose real name is Ahmed Fadheel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, reiterated their strong allegiance to Jordan's King Abdullah II in half-page advertisements in the kingdom's three main newspapers. Zarqawi threatened to kill the king in an audiotape released Friday.

"A Jordanian doesn't stab himself with his own spear," said the statement by 57 members of the Khalayleh family, including Zarqawi's brother and cousin. "We sever links with him until doomsday."

The statement is a serious blow to Zarqawi, who no longer will enjoy the protection of his tribe and whose family members may seek to kill him.

The U.S. soldier killed Sunday near the capital was assigned to the Army's Task Force Baghdad and was hit by small-arms fire, the military said. The Marine, assigned to Regimental Combat Team 8, 2nd Marine Division, died of wounds suffered the day before in Karmah, a village outside Fallujah to the west of the capital.

In the southern city of Basra, a roadside bomb killed a British soldier and wounded four others, the British Ministry of Defense said. The ministry said 98 British soldiers have died in Iraq. At least 2,094 U.S. service members have died in Iraq, according to an Associated Press count.

The U.S. military also said Sunday that 24 people - including another Marine and 15 civilians - were killed the day before in an ambush on a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol in Hadithah, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad in the volatile Euphrates River valley.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday on ABC's This Week that commanders' assessments will determine the pace of any military drawdown. About 160,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq as the country approaches parliamentary elections Dec. 15.

The Pentagon has said it plans to scale back troop strength to its pre-election baseline of 138,000, depending on conditions.

In Cairo, Iraq's president said Sunday he was ready for talks with antigovernment opposition figures and members of Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath Party, and he called on the Sunni-led insurgency to lay down its arms and join the political process.

But President Jalal Talabani, attending an Arab League-sponsored reconciliation conference, insisted that the Iraqi government would not meet with Baath Party members who are participating in the Sunni-led insurgency.

[Last modified November 21, 2005, 01:05:18]