Pirate's Cove

Good news indeed (From Fox News):

BAGHDAD, Iraq  — Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Al Qaeda in Iraq leader who led a brutal insurgencey terrorist reign that included homicide bombings, kidnappings and beheadings, was killed in an airstrike on a building north of Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi officials announced Thursday.

Officials said the terror leader’s identity was confirmed by fingerprints, facial recognition, and known scars.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki said Al-Zarqawi was killed along with seven aides Wednesday evening at around 6:15 p.m. local time in a bombing raid on a building in a remote area 30 miles northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province.

Fox News changed the words suicide bombings to homicide bombings from the original AP story, I’m taking the liberty of changing it to terrorist reign. He’s not an insurgent leader in Iraq when he is not Iraqi, but Jordanian. And now dead.

Interestingly, Fox also added the “beheadings” part. Good for them.

CNN reports

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted man in Iraq, was killed in a coalition airstrike near Baquba, jubilant U.S. and Iraqi authorities announced Thursday.

The 3-year-old insurgency has “lost its leader,” Gen. George Casey, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, told reporters.

Details are still emerging of the operation against the self-proclaimed leader of al Qaeda in Iraq who pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden. (Watch how al-Zarqawi’s body was identified — 2:28)

Kudo’s to CNN for writing the story that way.

DU’ers question the timing (gee, that’s original). Not finding much else on the DU that says says anything positive. Not surprised.

Vinnie at The Jawa Report stayed up late and picked the story up.

Gun Toting Liberal: “Bumbling, head sawing terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi deader than a popcorn rectal methane emission” Awesome!

Michelle Malkin has video.

Beth at MVRWC picks up on Nick Berg’s (remember, Zarqawi beheaded him) fathers thoughts. Not pretty.

Stop The ACLU has more.

The BBC has an interesting report about how the Arab TV covered this story as it was breaking, which includes

At 1057 GMT, nearly four hours after the first reports, al-Jazeera TV reported that an al-Qaeda website had acknowledged the death of one of its most iconic leaders.

In an urgent screen caption, al-Jazeera TV reported: “Al-Hisbah electronic website used by al-Qaeda confirms death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.”