From the Seattle Times:
BAGHDAD, Iraq “” U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight “” some by their own hands to possibly avoid capture. The White House said Sunday that it was “highly unlikely” that the terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.
Insurgents, meanwhile, killed a U.S. soldier and two Marines in attacks over the weekend, and a British soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in the south.
On Saturday, police Brig. Gen. Said Ahmed al-Jubouri said the raid was launched after a tip that top al-Qaida operatives, possibly including al-Zarqawi, were in the house. Al-Zarqawi heads the group calling itself al-Qaida in Iraq.
During the gunbattle that followed, three insurgents detonated explosives and killed themselves, Iraqi officials said. Eleven Americans were wounded, the U.S. military said. Such intense resistance often suggests an attempt to defend a high-value target. But Trent Duffy, a Bush spokesman, said reports of al-Zarqawi’s death were “highly unlikely and not credible.”…