The suspected al Qaeda operative believed to be behind a wave of deadly attacks in Iraq is still in that country and the target of an intense manhunt, the commander of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan said on Thursday.
General John Abizaid said the co-ordinated bomb attacks that killed at least 181 people at Shia Muslim shrines this week bore the hallmark of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian accused of links to al Qaeda network.
"He's somewhere in Iraq," Abizaid said in an interview on the public television programme "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer."
"We're looking for him hard and we've found quite a few of his operatives and we've taken out a couple of his senior operatives and we've uncovered an awful lot of the work that he's doing," said Abizaid, the head of US Central Command. Iraqi and US official accuse Zarqawi of waging a campaign to foment civil war in Iraq. US forces have put a $10 million bounty on his head.
"I believe the threat that he presents to peace and stability in Iraq is one that should worry both the Iraqi authorities and American authorities," Abizaid said of Zarqawi.