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Autopsy on Zarqawi finished, account of beating rejected

    BEIJING, June 12 (Xinhuanet)-- A U.S. military autopsy was finished Sunday on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist leader killed Wednesday in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq.

    But the findings were not immediately released by American officials.

    The examination by two U.S. military forensic specialists flown in specially for the autopsy was part of an investigation to reconstruct the last minutes of the terror chieftain's life before an American warplane bombed his hideout late Wednesday.

    U.S. commanders initially said al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, died in the airstrike but later said he survived and died soon after.

    The top American commander in Iraq on Sunday rejected as "baloney" an account by the Iraqi witness who said a dying man resembling al-Zarqawi had been beaten by American troops after warplanes demolished Zarqawi's safe house with a pair of bombs on Wednesday evening.

    The air assault north of Baghdad in the village of Hibhib, near Baquba, was quick and fierce, but did not immediately kill Zarqawi. "Our soldiers who came on the scene found him being put in an ambulance by the Iraqi police, they took him off, rendered first aid, and he expired," the American commander, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., said on "Fox News Sunday." He said Zarqawi "died while American soldiers were attempting to save his life."

    In Hibhib, a neighbor who gave his name as Muhammad said that after the second bomb was dropped, he rushed to the home and helped to drag a heavyset man, who he now believes was Zarqawi, away from the rubble. "He was still alive," said Muhammad, who had given similar accounts to other news organizations.

    A few minutes later, he said, the Iraqi police loaded the man into an ambulance, and American troops arrived soon after that, taking the man out of the ambulance and putting him on a stretcher and clearing all Iraqis away. The Americans demanded to know the man's name, and then one struck him with his rifle butt, Muhammad said. The Americans loaded the body of Zarqawi and several others into helicopters and flew away, he said.

    Zarqawi's death did not appear to slow the pace of mayhem in the country. Nearly 40 people were killed in violence on Sunday, including seven Iraqi soldiers and a civilian who died when a suicide car bomber attacked a checkpoint near Baquba, The Associated Press reported.

    The group formerly headed by Zarqawi, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, vowed in a statement issued with other insurgent groups to "prepare for big operations" that will "shake the enemy." The statement did not say whether the group had decided on a new leader, but it did vow allegiance to Osama bin Laden, saying "his soldiers in Iraq" will bring him joy. Enditem

    (Agencies)