US mum on Zarqawi's health

2005-05-05 19:52

Baghdad - US forces searched a hospital in central Iraq after receiving a tip from an informant about possible terrorist activities there related to Iraq's most wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an official said on Thursday.

No insurgents were found during last week's search of the hospital in Ramadi, 115km west of Baghdad, said spokesperson Steven Boylan.

"We had received a tip ... that terrorist elements were there. We felt it was credible enough to act upon.

"We searched the hospital and came up with no detainees.

I can't discuss who especially we were going after," Boylan said in Baghdad.

In Washington, a US defence official said on condition of anonymity that US officials had been alerted to "possible terrorist activities related to" al-Zarqawi "in and around" the hospital.

He confirmed that no one was detained by American forces there.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the US military was looking into reports that al-Zarqawi was present at the hospital and the possibility that he may be ill or wounded.

Officials did not specify to the paper why they thought this might be the case.

But the Post reported that al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq group had posted a statement at two mosques, including one in Ramadi, saying he was at the hospital during the April 28 raid, but escaped capture.

Another official in Washington, Pentagon spokesperson Bryan Whitman, told the AP on Thursday that it would be inappropriate to say publicly whether US officials believe al-Zarqawi is ill or injured because that information could complicate efforts to capture him.

America has offered a $25m reward for information leading to al-Zarqawi's arrest.

US forces believe they just missed capturing al-Zarqawi during a raid in Iraq in February that netted two of his associates and a computer thought to belong to al-Zarqawi.

- AP