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http://today.reuters.com/news/newsa...766_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-BUSH.xml&src=rss&rpc=22
Bush says Iraq's new al Qaeda chief in US sights
Mon Jun 12, 2006 6:16 PM ET
By Tabassum Zakaria
CAMP DAVID, Maryland (Reuters) - President George W. Bush vowed on Monday that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's successor as al Qaeda's chief in Iraq would be "on our list" of targets and said U.S. troops must stay for now to help secure the country.
Confronting low public approval ratings and an increasingly unpopular war, Bush spoke after a day of talks with his national security team about how to capitalize on the death of Zarqawi and the creation of a Iraqi unity government.
Zarqawi, mastermind of some of the bloodiest bombings since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, died last Wednesday during a U.S. air strike on an al Qaeda hide-out.
The group named a successor, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, little known in the West, even as Bush conferred by video conference from Camp David with his war commanders in Baghdad about the way forward in Iraq.
Bush, when asked about Muhajir, suggested he could suffer the same fate as his predecessor. "I think the successor to Zarqawi is going to be on our list to bring to justice," he said tersely.
But while hailing Zarqawi's death as a "major blow" to al Qaeda, Bush said: "I fully recognize that's not going to end the war." Al Qaeda threatened revenge attacks, and insurgent bombings killed at least 34 people in Iraq on Monday...