EFZ: BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents said Wednesday in interviews and Internet statements that the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was struggling with a gunshot wound to the lung, and one of his commanders said al-Zarqawi was receiving oxygen, heightening suspicion that groundwork was being laid for an announcement of al-Zarqawi's replacement or death.| Having trouble breathing, is he? Awwwwwwwwww, too bad. |
The insurgents' accounts suggested at a minimum that steady U.S. and Iraqi military pressure was having an effect on al-Zarqawi's group. In an interview Tuesday, the al-Zarqawi lieutenant, Abu Karrar, described his group as weighing possible foreign or Iraqi successors in case al-Zarqawi died.
One view Wednesday among some Iraqi Sunni Muslim insurgents - sometime rivals and allies of foreign fighters such as al-Zarqawi - was that the attrition among his top supporters may have undercut his support within the insurgency. That view ascribed Tuesday's sudden announcement of his grave injury to a power struggle within his group.
A leader in al-Zarqawi's organization, identifying himself by the battlefield name Abu Jalal Iraqi, said in an interview Wednesday that al-Zarqawi's health "wasn't easy." "He is wounded in his right lung, in which the bullets crossed and remained in his back," Iraqi said.
| Slugs stayed in him, along with whatever they carried with them. Excellent chance of infection. |
Al-Zarqawi, who is about 39, "is being given respiration," the lieutenant said, without elaborating.
| Hard to run dragging an oxygen tank. |
| Death by Hellfire |
Later Wednesday, militant Islamic Web sites later gave accounts similar to Iraqi's, down to a description of al-Zarqawi being treated by Sudanese and Saudi doctors. One site posted a denial of the lung injury.