By: E&P Staff and The Associated Press New mysteries swirled around the Wednesday attack that killed terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, with details in the official story for the media changing again --a child was killed in the bombing, after all -- and a shocking new charge from a purported eyewitnesss.
An Iraqi man who was one of the first people on the scene of the U.S. airstrike said he saw American troops beating a bearded man he believes was Zarqawi.
The witness, who lives near the house where Zarqawi spent his last days, said he saw the man lying on the ground near an irrigation canal. He was badly wounded but still alive, the man told Associated Press Television News and later The Washington Post.
U.S. troops arriving on the scene wrapped the man's head in an Arab robe and began beating him after he failed to identify himself, said the local man. His account could not be independently verified.
The U.S. military made no mention of any physical contact between U.S. troops and al-Zarqawi other than an attempt to provide him with medical attention.
Zarqawi died shortly after the U.S. military obliterated his hideout northwest of Baghdad Wednesday with two 500-pound bombs. The bombs tore a huge crater in the date palm forest where the house was nestled outside the town of Baqouba.
When asked about the man's allegations, military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said he would check.
[UPDATE: On Sunday, General George W. Casey said, "The way I respond to the comments of the alleged Iraqi who saw what went on there is, that's baloney, and we've already gone back, looked at it." He also said "the idea that there were people there beating him is just ludicrous." The New York Times reported that another self-described witness, interviewed Sunday on Al Jazeera satellite network, "made no mention of soldiers striking the man and suggested that American soldiers tore open his clothing in what appeared an effort to revive him."]
The Iraqi, identified as Mohammed Ahmed, claimed that residents put the man in an ambulance before U.S. forces arrived. The American military team then pulled the man from the ambulance and beat him, Ahmed said. He gave a similar account to The Washington Post, adding that he and others at the bombing site were detained and interrogated for several hours by American forces.
No other witnesses have come forward to corroborate the account of a man resembling al-Zarqawi being beaten. U.S. officials have only said al-Zarqawi mumbled and tried to roll off a stretcher before dying.
Meanwhile, Dexter Filkins, in a story at the New York Times' web site on Saturday, related growing doubts about how Zarqawi could have initially survived the enormous blast. "With rumors circulating in the Iraqi news media that Mr. Zarqawi had begun to run from the house as the first bomb struck, American officials said Saturday that two military pathologists had arrived in Iraq to perform an autopsy on Mr. Zarqawi's body to determine the precise cause of his death," Filkins wrote.
"The results from the autopsy, and Mr. Zarqawi's precise location at the time of the airstrike, would be disclosed soon, an American military official said."
Initially, the military had said al-Zarqawi was killed outright. But on Friday, the spokesman for the U.S.-led forces in Iraq said Iraqi forces found al-Zarqawi clinging to life.
Also on Saturday, U.S. officials changed their story for the third time on the dead at the house besides Zarqawi. First official reports included the death of a child along with two women and other men. Then that was changed to definitely no child. On Saturday, at a briefing in Baghdad, Caldwell confirmed that one of the six people who died in the bombing was a girl around five or six years old.
The New York Times noted on Saturday that other mysteries remained: "Some of the emerging details raised new questions, such as how and why the Iraqi police arrived at the scene of the airstrike before the American commandos who had surrounded the house, and what they did once they arrived. American troops have sometimes stepped aside for Iraqi soldiers or police officers to enter a mosque or other building, but never at places as sensitive as the presumed hiding place of Mr. Zarqawi.
"General Caldwell said he hoped to answer some of those questions."
Caldwell also said experts told him it is not unheard of for people to survive a blast of that magnitude.
"There are cases when people, in fact, can survive even an attack like that on a building structure. Obviously, the other five in the building did not, but he did for some reason," Caldwell said.
He said he did not know if al-Zarqawi was inside or outside the house when the bombs struck.
"Well, what we had found, as with anything, first reports are not always fully accurate as we continue the debriefings. But we were not aware yesterday that, in fact, Zarqawi was alive when U.S. forces arrived on the site," Caldwell said.
His recounting of the aftermath of the airstrike could not be independently verified. The Iraqi government confirmed only that Iraqi forces were first on the scene, followed by the Americans.
An aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said he saw Caldwell's news briefing but could neither confirm nor deny that al-Zarqawi briefly survived the blast.
"Well, I think it's clear: The Americans said he was seriously wounded and he died," the aide said.
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