How They Got Zarqawi

Intelligence breakthroughs and a hot tip about a meeting spelled his doom

In the end, the savagery of Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi may have earned him too many enemies. The terrorist responsible for some of the most gruesome killings in Iraq was killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi military operation Wednesday, after the U.S. and its allies had finally located him. A well-placed intelligence source in Jordan told TIME that the CIA was tipped off after Jordanian intelligence learned of a meeting that Zarqawi planned to hold in the town of Baquba, north of Baghdad. His safe house was targeted in an air attack, and, says the same source, the Jordanian-born leader of the group al-Qaeda in Iraq was killed in the bombing. A senior Jordanian official confirmed that "there was a Jordanian security role in this." The official said he believed the breakthrough was a result of "cumulative intelligence," including from the recent arrest last month of a senior Al-Qaeda operative in Iraq. U.S. officials have said fingerprint and photographic evidence confirm Zarqawi's identity. Jihadi websites are also reported to have announced his death.

The takedown was largely a military effort. But a U.S. official told TIME that American intelligence operatives played an important role in determining that Sheik Abd-al-Rahman, Zarqawi's spiritual adviser, was a key link who could lead to Zarqawi himself. "Intelligence was useful in identifying this individual and his importance to Zarqawi," the U.S. official said. "It's as though you had identified Frank Nitti with the knowledge that eventually he would lead you to Al Capone. This was the culmination of a huge amount of effort."

Video of the Bombing