Zarqawi Killed.

US aircraft on June 7 killed Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, the Qaeda leader in Iraq blamed for suicide bombings, beheadings and assassinations, and President Bush on June 8 said American forces had "delivered justice". In one of the most significant developments in Iraq since the capture of Saddam in December 2003, the Jordanian Zarqawi was killed in a US-Iraqi operation helped by tip-offs from Iraqis and Jordanian intelligence. Vowing to fight on, al-Qaeda in Iraq confirmed the death of Zarqawi.

Gen. George W. Casey Jr., head of US-led forces in Iraq, said Zarqawi and one of his key lieutenants Shaikh Abdel-Rahman were killed at 6.15 pm on June 7. He said Zarqawi's death outside Ba'quba, 60 km north of Baghdad, "is a significant blow to al-Qaeda", adding: "Tips and intelligence from Iraqi senior leaders from his network led forces to Zarqawi and some of his associates", who had a meeting in a safe house about 8 km north of Baq'uba.

Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki said seven other leading lieutenants of Zarqawi, including two women who were working as spies for him, were killed in the air strike. Sources close to Zarqawi's family said one of his three wives was among the dead. The military said Shaikh Abdel Rahman had been tracked for several days and led the US forces to the safe house. US military spokesman Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell showed photographs of Zarqawi to reporters at a news conference and predicted that Zarqawi would be succeeded by an Egyptian born lieutenant known as "Abu al-Masri", whose movements had been monitored for some time and who is believed to have first come to Iraq in 2002.

A senior Jordanian official in Amman said: "Zarqawi was killed...in a joint operation involving the Jordanian intelligence, the US intelligence and American special operations forces. It was a land operation with air cover". In the bleak Jordanian town of Zarqa where Zarqawi grew up, shocked relatives mourned his death as a loss to Islam and prayed for 1,000 "Zarqawis" to fight the Americans in his place. But one of Zarqawi's brothers was on June 9 quoted as saying of the slain Qaeda leader: "May he rot in hell".

At NYMEX, July WTI fell $1.32 to $69.50/b in pit trading on news of Zarqawi's death. At around 1615 GMT, the WTI contract touched $69.10, the lowest since May 22. In London, July Brent fell $1.02 to $68.17/b. In afternoon trade it fell to $67.73 - last seen on May 22. Added was news that five South Koreans taken hostage by Nigerian militants were freed on June 8. But the week on June 9 closed with July WTI settled higher, at $71.64, on news that Iran had resumed uranium enrichment on June 6 - the very day the international powers presented it with a proposal to end the stand-off diplomatically.

With the killing of Zarqawi, the US has struck its most important blow in the war on terrorism since driving al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan in late 2001. Easily the deadliest terrorist at work over the last three years, Zarqawi was responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden and left behind a Neo-Salefi jihad movement drastically changed. Zarqawi's legacy suggests the US should be a lot more concerned. In Iraq, his efforts to set off sectarian conflict succeeded with a barbaric efficiency. Although US officials argued over the last three years that his band of foreign fighters represented a very small percentage of the insurgents in Iraq, the truth is that their violence drove the insurgency - especially the sectarian attacks like that on the Golden Mosque in Samarra' on Feb. 22.

Zarqawi's violence was so vicious and indiscriminate - killing so many Muslims, mainly Shi'ites and partly Sunnis collaborating with the US - it created what some experts call "the Zarqawi effect": a Muslim repugnance at a jihadi movement which has turned more of his co-religionists away from radicalism than America's democratisation campaign has done so far.

Sunni-Shi'ite hostilities have reached a level of intensity which no longer requires Zarqawi's murderous provocations. With his background in petty crime and thuggery, Zarqawi was the anti-thesis of the wealthy and well-connected bin Laden, and the two men were more often competitors than collaborators. For example, al-Qaeda's leadership warned Zarqawi in October 2005 about the effect which killing Shi'ites would have, but was apparently spurned. Despite not having bin Laden's stature, Zarqawi may yet wind up having at least as powerful an impact on the fate of nations. He viewed Iraq as a base for destabilising countries in the Middle East, and had already begun exporting terrorism from Iraq last November, when his operatives blew up three hotels in Jordan killing 61 people.

Because of Zarqawi's success in exploiting anger among Sunnis over losing their long domination of Iraq, the threat of a broader conflict between Sunnis and Shi'ites - Islam's two largest sects - now hangs over a broad swath of the world. Fears are growing of unrest in countries like Lebanon, with its civil war still fresh in memory and Iran-sponsored and Syria-backed Hizbollah apparently ready to risk re-igniting that war rather than disarming its forces; Saudi Arabia, whose a Shi'ite minority is concentrated in the Eastern Province, where the largest oilfields are; Bahrain, which has a Sunni monarchy and a Shi'ite majority; and Pakistan, which has been plagued by violence for decades. Should the sectarian conflict in Iraq worsen, Sunni neighbours like Turkey and Saudi Arabia could soon be facing off against Shi'ite Iran.

Zarqawi had been rapidly building a network which has raised the anxieties of security establishments in Europe and elsewhere. This adds more complexity to the situation for those who were trying to cope with the new breed of Neo-Salafi terrorists, like those who did the bombings in London in July 2005 and in Madrid in March 2004.

According to the US National Counterterrorism Center, Zarqawi's operatives are at work in 40 countries and linked with 24 extremist groups. At a terrorism trial in Germany last autumn, a judge declared that "Zarqawi should also be sitting on the defendants' bench". In Afghanistan, intelligence experts believe Zarqawi sent operatives to increase the violence against the Kabul government and NATO forces.

No one expected any person would surpass bin Laden as a terrorist leader. So there will be another Zarqawi. Top US military intelligence officials knew he was in Iraq and travelling around the country before the invasion. But they did not know he was preparing for an insurgency. With the arrest last week of 17 conspirators in Toronto, one would realise how global the war on terror has become. There is evidence that some of the Toronto suspects had links to others linked to Zarqawi.

The Neo-Salafis comprise a social movement, not just terrorist groups. They are opportunistic and flexible in accommodating to any circumstances. They thrive on Western pre-conceptions and instinctive determination to come up with rigid rules.