Zarqawi family wants slain son's body for burial

ZARQA, Jordan, June 9 : The family of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has asked the United States to hand over the body of the Jordanian Islamist leader for burial according to Muslim tradition, his brother said today.

For Mohammed Fadhil al-Khalayleh, 40, returning the body of his younger brother, who died in a US air strike on Wednesday night, was a matter of dignity and right.

''If they have any remaining respect for our religion then they should give us the body of martyr Abu Musab, this is our right as a family,'' said Mohammed at a wake organised by the family in the working class city of Zarqa, 25 km (16 miles) northeast of Amman.

Jordan, which brands Zarqawi as a top terrorist who sought to destabilise the kingdom, may accept that the body be handed over to the family for burial out of humanitarian considerations and in deference to Muslim tradition, political sources say.

Khalayleh, the eldest son in a family of 10 who last saw his brother before he left Jordan in 2000 to become a Muslim fighter in Afghanistan, led family elders in receiving relatives and friends in what they billed as Abu Musab's wedding party.

''I am very proud...he was a man who fought for God's sake in Afghanistan and Iraq and asked for martyrdom and God gave it to him,'' said Khalayleh who offered visitors sweets to signify joy instead of the traditional bitter coffee signifying sorrow.

The Jordanian, who was behind some of the most spectacular suicide bombings in Iraq and was blamed for videotaped beheadings of some foreign hostages, had come to symbolise the Islamic insurgency against US-led forces occupying Iraq.

Viewed by his opponents as a ruthless murderer behind some of the most deadly attacks in Iraq, he is celebrated as a cult figure in the town where he grew up before leaving for Afghanistan and Iraq.

''He is in our hearts. Every Muslim said a silent prayer for his soul,'' said Salem Khalayleh, a mechanic among those attending the wake, referring to Friday prayers across the city's many mosque's.

Tribesmen and family members praised Zarqawi, saying he had earned ''his rightful place in heaven as a Muslim martyr'' by fighting the U.S. occupation forces. Others discussed his ''charisma and bravery''.

''He is now with saints and the Prophet's (Mohammed) closest followers,'' said Yousef Sulaiti, behind a large banner that read ''the wedding of martyred hero Abu Musab''.

REBELLIOUS SPIRIT For the Khalayleh clan, an offshoot of the country's largest Bani Hassan tribe with over 350,000 members, Zarqawi's fiercely daring streak has long been a tribal tradition.

''He is a true Khalayleh,'' said Ibrahim, a cousin who said Zarqawi embodied the rebellious spirit that made Bani Hassan members the most prominent of tribes that resisted British rule in Jordan at the turn of the 20th century.

Jailed by Jordanian authorities for several years in the early 1990s, Zarqawi went on to fight US forces in Iraq, where Osama bin Laden named him the ''prince'' of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Even when Zarqawi took his zeal to fight ''infidels and apostates'' to his own country last November where a group of his followers staged triple bombings that killed 60 Jordanians, few of his relatives appeared to have had a moral dilemma.

''The ugly acts in Iraq were blamed on him to smear his reputation and his bravery in bringing America to its feet in Iraq,'' said Khalil Khalayleh, an uncle. ''His martyrdom will be an great inspiration for others.''

REUTERS