Wanted Dead or Alive: Today in Manhunting History -- June 7, 2006: The Death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

A week after Rahman had evaded the U.S. drone attempting to tail him, another Predator picked him up at his mosque late in the afternoon of June 7, getting into the blue sedan. The drone followed him as he made his way northeast out of Baghdad, staying on the highway for about 40 minutes into Diyala province. Near Baqubah, the car turned onto a minor road and pulled up to a white, two-story farmhouse at the edge of a date palm forest in the village of Hibhib. No other buildings were nearby. Rahman opened the passenger door, exited the sedan, and walked inside the house, trailed by his driver. As the Task Force officers watched through the Predator camera, a man wearing a black dishsasha walked from the house to the edge of the paved road. The man looked to his right, then to his left, before walking back inside.

Everybody was certain it was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

A 2004 wanted poster of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

As the Predator tracked Rahman, a Task Force assault team sat in a helicopter on the tarmac at Balad. The moment Zarqawi’s location was revealed they were airborne, en route to Hibhib. Yet the Task Force commander decided not to wait for the shooters to get into position. With no heavy concentration of Coalition troops in the area, it would take time to muster a ground assault comparable to those that snagged Saddam and his sons. Moreover, a large ground force would likely be seen by Zarqawi’s lookouts, who would subsequently warn the Jordanian. Even if a force could cordon off the farmhouse, storming the structure would likely result in a firefight, and the resulting confusion might allow Zarqawi yet another opportunity to slip away. Consequently, the commander decided to call in an airstrike.

Two Air Force F-16Cs who had spent the day conducting aerial reconnaissance for roadside bombs were quickly located. The pilots were told only that the target was “high value.” Although one of the planes was hooked up to a refueling plane, the second jet was ordered to peel off and fly solo for the mission, something “that is not done in the Air Force,” underlining the urgency of the mission.

In Balad, Task Force members waited, watching the farmhouse on a grainy black-and-white video. Suddenly, the screen grew dark, and billows of gray smoke emerged in four directions around the house, “in the shape of a cross.” At 6:12PM the jet dropped the first laser-guided 500-pound bomb, creating a blast so large villagers said the earth shook. About two minutes later, before the smoke had cleared, a second blast produced a smaller, more contained plume of white smoke. Both bombs hit the target, leaving nothing but a pile of rubble and twisted metal in a grove of splintered palm trees. Other than a pair of thin foam mattresses and a small carton of pineapple juice, little else inside the house was intact.

Several local Iraqi men raced to the sound of the explosions and pulled Zarqawi from the rubble, unaware the man they were trying to rescue was the most wanted man in Iraq. As they dragged him from the ruins, an ambulance and Iraqi forces arrived. The Task Force operators arrived at about 6:40PM, fast-roping from Black Hawk helicopters. They took the stretcher which lay Zarqawi upon and placed it on the ground. Because of numerous reports that Zarqawi slept in a suicide belt, they tore off his dishsasha. But despite his declaration that he “would rather blow [him]self up and die as a martyr – and kill a few Americans along the way” than be captured, it turned out the vicious killer was wearing nothing but boxer shorts under his robes.

Zarqawi spat blood and drifted in and out consciousness. When he realized American soldiers were standing over him, he attempted to roll off the stretcher and escape. The operators re-secured him and tried to save his life. Although he had no external injuries except for a few cuts, his breathing was labored and shallow, his lungs collapsed from the concussive blast waves of the airstrike. Finally, at 7:04PM, his breath faded and his pulse gave out, his last sight an American soldier.