The Iraqi government announced that it has buried Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in or near Baghdad in a secret location and will not return his body to his family. The Jordanian government had bloked his return, but his family as well as Osama bin Laden had demanded that the Americans turn his remains over so that he could be buried near his family in Zarqa:

Mouwafak al-Rubaie would not say when the Jordanian-born militant, who was killed June 7 in a U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad, was buried, or give any specifics on the location of the grave.

The U.S. military confirmed the burial but declined to give details.

"The remains of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi were turned over to the appropriate government of Iraq officials and buried in accordance with Muslim customs and traditions," the military said in an e-mailed statement. "Anything further than that would be addressed by the Iraqi government."

Al-Zarqawi's older brother demanded that his body be transferred to Jordan, and accused the United States of lying.

"Bush took his body to the United States," Sayel al-Khalayleh, 50, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his home in the Jordanian city of Zarqa.

I think we can rule out the idea that anyone wanted to bury Zarqawi in the US. If anything, we would have preferred cremation, in order to avoid anyone turning his gravesite into a martyr's shrine. Besides, what would Bush have done with the body here in the US -- put it on display, perhaps down the Mall in Washington for the Independence Day parade? Khalayleh must be daft.

Zarqawi would hardly receive a hero's welcome from the Jordanians, anyway. His remains may well be more secure in their anonymity in Baghdad. He squandered whatever sympathy he had gained among his fellow Jordanian subjects when he killed 60 of them at a wedding. The victims and their families welcomed his death, certainly more than they would have his funeral.

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In the final chapter of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, his body has been secretly buried in an unknown location in Iraq. Ignoring requests by his family that his body be returned to Jordan for burial -- of which Jordan said they... [Read More]

Tracked on July 3, 2006 6:52 AM