Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has announced that al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been killed in a joint US and Iraqi military raid north of Baghdad.
"Today Zarqawi has been terminated," Mr Maliki told a televised news conference attended also by the top US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, and other senior officials.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in an undated photo released by the US Department of State
Iraqiya television said seven Zarqawi aides were also killed in the raid in the city of Baquba, 65 kilometres north of the capital.
Mr Maliki said the air strike was the result of intelligence reports provided to Iraqi security forces by residents in the area, and that US forces acted on the information. "Those who disrupt the course of life, like Zarqawi, will have a tragic end," he said.
"Every time a Zarqawi appears we will kill him," the prime minister added. "We will continue confronting whoever follows his path. It is an open war between us."
US President George Bush said US special-operations forces confirmed Zarqawi's location based on intelligence from Iraqis and "delivered justice to the most wanted terrorist in Iraq."
Mr Bush was informed by a national security adviser at 4.35pm (8.35pm Irish time) yesterday in the Oval Office that it was believed Zarqawi was dead.
"Special Forces had been tracking him and people close to him, and they had very good reason to believe, because of some of the traffic in and out of the building, that Zarqawi was there," a US spokesman said.
US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said today was "a good day for a America". He said Zarqawi was the "godfather of sectarian killings and terror in Iraq" and his death was a "good omen" for Iraq and the new government.
Gen Casey said Zarqawi's body had been identified by fingerprints and facial recognition and warned that al-Qaeda still posed a security threat to Iraq.
Iraq's al-Qaeda vowed today to maintain its fight despite the death of its leader.
"We herald the martydom of our mujahed Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq... and we stress that this is an honour to our nation," said a statement on an Islamist website, signed by Zarqawi's deputy, Abu Abdulrahman al-Iraqi.
"We tell our prince, Sheikh bin Laden, your soldiers in al-Qaeda in Iraq will continue along the same path that you set out for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," said the statement, which could not be immediately authenticated.
Jordanian-born Zarqawi, who is believed to be in his 30s, is blamed by the United States for the beheading of foreign captives and carrying out suicide bombings that have maimed and killed hundreds in Iraq. The US government had offered a $25 million bounty for his capture.
Zarqawi appeared on a video in April unmasked for the first time, meeting his followers, firing a machinegun in the desert and condemning the entire Iraqi political process.
US officers have also accused Zarqawi of trying to foment civil war and to derail efforts by Mr Maliki, a Shia, to form a national unity government with Sunnis and Kurds.
He was last heard of last week in a four-hour-long audiotape posted on the Internet, during which he claimed Shia militias are raping women and killing Sunnis and the community must fight back. The tape appeared aimed at sabotaging the Iraqi government's efforts to name a unity government and inflaming Shia-Sunni tensions across the Arab world.
Zarqawi's real name is Ahmed Fadhil al-Khalayleh. Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden appointed him as his deputy in Iraq in October 2004, when Zarqawi changed his group's name from Tawhid wal Jihad to Al-Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq.
The group has claimed responsibility for many major suicide bombings and attacks in Iraq, as well as beheadings of foreign hostages. He has a $25 million US bounty on his head.
After returning to Jordan from Afghanistan, Zarqawi began a violent campaign in the early 1990s to replace Jordan's monarchy with an Islamist state. He was jailed for 15 years in 1996 but was freed three years later under an amnesty when King Abdullah assumed the throne.
A Jordanian court sentenced him to death in absentia in 2002 for plotting attacks against US and Israeli targets in Jordan. He was again sentenced to death in April 2004 for planning the assassination of US diplomat Laurence Foley in the capital Amman in 2002.
In December 2005, Jordan's state security court handed Zarqawi his third death sentence in absentia for planning a failed suicide attack at the border post with Iraq. Zarqawi claimed triple suicide bomb attacks that killed 60 people at luxury hotels in Amman in November 2005.
US forces and their allies came close to capturing Zarqawi several times since his campaign began in mid-2003.
In late 2004, Iraqi security forces caught Zarqawi near the insurgent stronghold of Falluja but then released him because they didn't realise who he was.
In May 2005, website statements by his group said Zarqawi had been wounded in fighting with Americans and was being treated in a hospital abroad. But days later, a statement said Zarqawi was fine and had returned to Iraq. There was never any independent confirmation of the reports of his wounding.
US forces believe they just missed capturing him in a February 2005 raid in which troops closed in on his vehicle west of Baghdad near the Euphrates River. His driver and another associate were captured, and Zarqawi's computer was seized along with pistols and ammunition.
US troops twice launched massive invasions of Falluja, the stronghold used by al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters and other insurgents west of Baghdad. An April 2004 offensive left the city still in insurgent hands, but the October 2004 assault wrested it from them.
Agencies