An army spokesman announces the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"The man was an animal and he deserved what he got. And may he rot in hell."
—Paul Bigley, whose brother was beheaded by followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in an interview with Britain's Channel Four television network
Sunni insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who U.S. authorities say is responsible for scores of kidnappings, beheadings, and bombings, is killed June 7 in an airstrike on a safe house north of Baghdad. The Jordanian-born Zarqawi was a leader of al-Qaeda's Iraq insurgency campaign, which sought to widen the divide between Iraq's Sunnis and Shi'ites to prolong the conflict. Despite the power of two 500-pound bombs, Iraqi and U.S. soldiers find the most wanted man in Iraq still alive but critically wounded, saying his prayers. The U.S. hopes his death will be a blow to the insurgency, but those prayers turn out, for the most part, not to be answered.