Bush hails killing of al-Qaida leader in Iraq

June 8, 2006 (WASHINGTON) - President Bush said Thursday that killing terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi struck a severe blow to al-Qaida and opens a new opportunity for the fledging democracy in Iraq.

"Now Zarqawi has met his end, and this violent man will never murder again," Bush said in the Rose Garden as he announced the U.S. airstrike on the militant whom Osama bin Laden had dubbed the "emir," or prince, of al-Qaida in Iraq.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said a terrorist mastermind is gone.

"Over the past several years no single person on this planet has had the blood of more innocent men, women and children on his hands," Rumsfeld said at a meeting of NATO ministers in Brussels. But he cautioned al-Zarqawi's death "will not mean the end of all violence in that country."