Exploiting Zarqawi's address book

NY Times:

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist leader killed in an airstrike on Wednesday, initially survived the bombing and died from his wounds after Iraqi police officers and American soldiers arrived on the scene, American officials said Friday.

The news came as American forces, trying to sustain the momentum gathered after Mr. Zarqawi's death, raided dozens of suspected hideouts of Al Qaeda across Iraq. The Americans said they detained at least 25 suspects, and a senior Pentagon adviser said documents, cellphones, passports and computers were also seized. But one of the raids, in a village not far from the spot where Mr. Zarqawi was killed, appeared to cause a number of civilian deaths.

The new material provided the Special Operations force charged with tracking terrorists with fresh intelligence to carry out attacks before insurgents can shift their operations, the adviser said. "They're going full blast right now," he said of the force. He was granted anonymity because of the classified nature of Special Operations missions.

Fears that Mr. Zarqawi's followers would mount a spate of attacks led the government to impose a midday ban on vehicular traffic in Baghdad and a nighttime curfew in Baquba. There were few verifiable reports of violence on Friday.

The Mujahedeen Shura, an umbrella insurgent network that includes Mr. Zarqawi's group, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, claimed to have carried out a number of attacks on American soldiers and on Iraqi officials and security forces. While those attacks could not be verified, the claims, which were posted on jihadi Web sites, demonstrated that insurgent leaders were eager to show that Mr. Zarqawi's death had not put them out of business.

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It appears that his web site manager still survives, but he is making up reports of violence. The fact that there have been few verifiable reports of violence suggest that the organization is at least reeling at this point and the exploitation raids have also thrown it off balance. This AP story has more on the exploitation of data recovered at Zarqai's hideout and from subsequent raids.