Sorry for all the updates, but I want this guy to be dead real bad.

The headline isn't a joke. Weird that someone would peg the probability of a body being Zarqawi's at 30%. I figure that must mean there are some minor consistencies between the body and Zarqawi, but not enough to be more certain.

An Iraqi police commander said Sunday that U.S. and Iraqi officials were certain that seven men who fought to the death in a house in northern Iraq were members of al Qaeda but were still trying to determine whether one of them was Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian insurgent leader.

U.S. and Iraqi forces remained deployed around the site of the three-hour gunfight Saturday at a house in the city of Mosul, north of Baghdad.

...

Joint forces backed by U.S. military helicopters had surrounded the house after receiving a tip that led them to believe that Zarqawi might be inside, the governor of Nineveh province, Duraid Kashmoula, said Saturday.

Four of the fighters inside died resisting an intense air and ground assault by the U.S. and Iraqi forces, and three others blew themselves up with explosives rather than be captured, Kashmoula said. A woman was also found inside with the words "suicide bomber" marked on her chest, officials said. Brig. Gen. Said Ahmed Jubouri, a police commander in Mosul, said the force of the suicide blasts destroyed the house.

Fierce resistance on such a scale often indicates the presence of what the U.S. military calls high-value insurgent targets. U.S. intelligence officials said earlier this year that Zarqawi had vowed not to be taken alive.

...

U.S. military officials believe it is possible that Zarqawi was killed in the raid but will not know with certainty until DNA tests are run, said a U.S. military intelligence official involved in Iraqi issues.

There is a "30 percent" chance that one of the bodies is Zarqawi's, he said. But he warned: "We've had dry holes before."

And check this out:

Over the past month, the official said, there has been a series of raids following a surge in tips from Iraqis unhappy with Zarqawi and his operation. These tend to be traditional Iraqi leaders -- sheiks and imams -- upset with the organization, especially its recent execution of Sunni Arabs in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar. "Their feeling is that al Qaeda in Iraq has overstepped its bounds," he said.

Whether we got him this time or not, we definitely got eight fuckers that needed killing, and it looks like we'll be getting more.

Posted by: Ace at 08:26 PM | Comments (33)
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So hints Newsweek, and Tom Maguire suggests the reasons he -- "no partisan gunslinger" -- migh have leaked the tidbit.

Bonus: He wasn't a supporter of the Iraq War (being Colin Powell's right-hand man). If he did the leaking at all, it would have been to deride the CIA's ineptness in conducting an investigation, as State thought its intelligence was better.

Posted by: Ace at 07:15 PM | Comments (11)
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So, for the moment, the bastard's alive.

Posted by: Ace at 04:04 PM | Comments (23)
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Some believe the prototypical "alien face" recalled in abduction stories is just the basic "facial template" of a mother seen through a newborn's eyes, remembered in a dreamlike state.

That, or they are just a bunch of nutters familiar with the covers of Whitley Streiber books.

Posted by: Ace at 02:05 PM | Comments (38)
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Not much more information. Eleven American servicement were wounded in the firefight.

Were the Jordan bombings too much for Zarqawi's confederates? Did someone drop dime on him to change him from a living liability to dead martyr for the cause?

Posted by: Ace at 02:03 PM | Comments (5)
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If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the upcoming Boeing 787 ‘Dreamliner's’ interior:

Sort of Star Trek, TNGish with the all the curves. Not a bad thing. Certainly feels ‘future.’ And the blue lighting wasn’t just for the photo. It can be manipulated in flight, in color and brightness, to mimic outside conditions. Probably less fatiguing in some body-clock, scientific way.

HereÂ’s the entranceway, all vaulted and round and blue-glowy too: more...

Posted by: Dr. Reo Symes at 01:59 PM | Comments (29)
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32 U.S. Students Chosen As Rhodes Scholars

One winner was Scott R. Erwin, a 2005 graduate of the University of Richmond, who founded Ambassadors of Democracy, a civic education initiative at Mustanseriya University in Baghdad. He underwent eight hours of surgery in June 2004 after the car he was riding in was ambushed. Two of his Iraqi friends, both teachers, were killed in the attack.

An investigation found that insurgents targeted his car in an attempt to stop the classes, he said.

"I'm proud to say the attacks did not stop the program from continuing," said Erwin, a 23-year-old native of Weatherby Lake, Mo. "Iraqi students continue to promote democratic ideals to their peers."

Erwin received the Medal for the Defense of Freedom, the civilian equivalent of the Purple Heart. He was wounded in both arms and in his stomach but has recovered. He plans to study international relations at Oxford.

I'm sure that the top Iraq story tonight will manage to be negative somehow.

And no, I'm not gonna jinx this by mentioning it by name.

Posted by: Tanker at 12:26 PM | Comments (5)
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I've never been big on breakfast myself, but this doesn't exactly sound like the breakfast of champions!

Brazil's coffee industry has brewed up a plan to serve up to 1 million schoolchildren a free breakfast -- complete with a cup of java.

Under the plan, a coffee roaster would adopt a school of at least 500 children and provide them with a free breakfast of coffee, milk and bread.

I hope they at least get some butter for the bread!

Posted by: Tanker at 09:29 AM | Comments (21)
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I'm told there might be some football game on, maybe involving the Giants and Philadelphia, so...

Posted by: Ace at 08:45 AM | Comments (14)
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Fingers crossed:

At least one Arab television media outlet reported that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of the al-Qaida in Iraq, was killed in Iraq on Sunday afternoon when eight terrorists blew themselves up in the in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

The unconfirmed report claimed that the explosions occurred after coalition forces surrounded the house in which al-Zarqawi was hiding.

Related? A Swedish man who visited Zarqawi is being interrogated:

The Swedish teenager being held in Sarajevo on suspicion of terrorist offences visited the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to the British newspaper The Times.

In an investigation into al-Zarqawi, one of the world's most wanted terrorists, the paper stated that "there are signs that al-Zarqawi wants to mobilise cells in Europe".

...

The Swedish man, reported The Times, is alleged to have spent time in Iraq with al-Zarqawi...

In Mosul, perhaps?

Posted by: Ace at 08:43 AM | Comments (73)
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