NEW ZARQAWI INFO

Dancing in the streets. Bill Roggio says it was likely the handiwork of Task Force 145. As expected.

Here’s what the scene looked like afterwards:

The Times says there was enough left of him to identify facial features, fingerprints, and known scars on his body. Here’s hoping they go the Uday/Qusay route and release the autopsy photos.

Needless to say, there’ll be updates here throughout the day. In the meantime, here’s video of Bush’s announcement. Click the image to watch.

It’s going to be a long day for Newsbusters.

I’m off to round-up reaction from the usual suspects. Confederate Yankee says the good folks at Democrats.com are celebrating — because now we can pull out and have it look kinda sorta like a victory. Send me any links you find of people questioning the timing, the stupider the better. Ten points if they tie it to Haditha, a thousand points if they tie it to the start of Yearly Kos.

Update: Greater unity through dead terrorists:

For Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, the killing of Mr. Zarqawi brought immediate political results in the form of parliamentary approval, immediately after the news conference, of Mr. Maliki’s nominees for the vacant security posts in the cabinet, the ministers of defense, interior and national security… The new ministers were named as Gen. Abdul Qadr Mohammed Jassim, a former general under Saddam Hussein who was jailed in 1994 and sentenced to seven years imprisonment, as minister of defense; Jawad Khadim Polani, a former air force engineering specialist under Mr. Hussein, as minister of the interior, responsible for the police; and Shirwan al-Waili as minister of national security.

Update: If you thought the revenge couldn’t get any sweeter, you were wrong. Remember this?

Link via SFPH, who’s also covering the “celebrations” at dKos. He missed this one, though. Thanks to Homemade Sin for that. Also this one, this one — and yet, oddly, this is the one that ends up on the frontpage. I wonder why.

There’s really no point trying to round up DU. The threads are coming fast and furious and most (but not all) are what you’d expect. Here’s a good one, though. Superficially off-topic but in the larger sense, right on point.

Update: Ahhhh, that’s the stuff.

Update: Debka says Al Qaeda has named Zarqawi’s successor.

Update: Turns out the military displayed a photo of Zarqawi’s corpse at the press conference. Confederate Yankee provides the screencap. Update: Yahoo News has a close-up here.

Update: Al Jazeera interviews Zarqawi’s degenerate family. Everyone’s sad except for the ones who are happy he’s gone to heaven to be with the other martyrs. Update: The AJ obit writer searches for an adjective to describe the attacks carried out by Zarqawi’s men — and settles on “headline-grabbing.” Update: Al Qaeda’s celebrating the “joyous” news too.

Update: Heh:

Update: Great photos over at Getty:

Update: Fox says there’s a White House briefing at 10:15. NRO has quick-take reactions from a number of people, including Victor Davis Hanson.

Update: CNN wonders if that video was Zarqawi’s undoing.

Update: Richard Engel blogs the “uncontainable excitement” at the press conference for MSNBC. Reports of ululation!

Update: Ken Bigley’s brother hopes Zarqawi rots in hell. Nick Berg’s wretched, wretched father is sad that “another human being had to die.”

Update: The WH press conference is starting now. Fox says Bush was told the news yesterday afternoon. Tony Snow says that Bush was meeting with Congressmen from both parties at 3:30 yesterday afternoon about Iraq and Rep. Ray LaHood said things would be better if Zarqawi were taken out. Phone calls came in from Khalilzad and Rumsfeld over the next hour about a strike that might have taken out Zarqawi. Stephen Hadley briefed Bush about it, who said drily, “That would be a good thing.” By 9:30 last night it had been confirmed.

Bush spoke to Blair and Maliki this morning. The U.S. and Iraqi cabinets will be meeting via teleconference on Tuesday. Snow predicts recriminations from the jihadis in country.

Update: Here’s what he looked like before they cleaned him up:

Update: Our friends in Palestine are keeping a stiff upper lip. Update: Richard Clarke isn’t impressed, either.

Update: The attack apparently took two weeks to plan — and it might have taken out as many as seven other jihadis.