The wife of slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said she feared for her husband’s life and warned him to leave Iraq, but that he refused to ‘betray’ his religion, according to a statement posted on the Internet Thursday.

Me thinks this chick is more upset about the leopard skin lingerie found at the site of the Zarqawi bombing than the fact that Zarqawi was killed.

According to Wikipedia Al-Zarqawi had two wives…..

Al-Zarqawi married his second wife Israa, when she was 13 and she bore him a child when she was 14. Al Zarqawi along with his wife, Israa (then 16), and their son Abdul Rahman (then 18 months) were killed in the airstrike on June 8, 2006.

Sweetness and Light has more about Zarqawi and his child bride.

Zarqawi was 37 when he married the 13 year old girl who was killed alongside him. There is no mention of her or the leopard skin lingerie found at the site of the bombing in the following article. This article does mention that the first wife is in her forties………

Does the Associated Press writer, Maggie Michael actually do research before she publishes? It’s puzzling that she didn’t include the information about Zarqawi’s sixteen year old bride and the lingerie.

Is this scorned first wife of Al-Zarqawi another Jersey Girl in the making? How long will it be before Gail Sheehy calls?

The woman _ who identified herself only as ‘Um Mohammed,’ which means ‘mother of Mohammed’ _ said she advised al-Zarqawi to leave Iraq temporarily and give orders to his deputies from outside the country. The insurgent leader died June 7 in a U.S. airstrike outside Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad.

Al-Zarqawi ‘gave me an angry look and said, `Me, me? I can’t betray my religion and get out of Iraq,'’ his wife said.

‘In the name of God, I will not leave Iraq until victory or martyrdom,’ she quoted al-Zarqawi as saying.

In a message to Osama bin Laden, she said her husband was ‘only one soldier in the ranks of your army, and there are so many soldiers.’

‘As long as our sheik Osama _ our leader and the one who makes infidels angry _ as long as he is fine, our agony from the death of our leader Abu Musab is bearable,’ the woman said in a statement posted on an Islamic Web site that frequently airs militant messages.

The woman identified herself by the same name as in an interview published Sunday in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, in which she said al-Qaida leaders sold out al-Zarqawi to the U.S. in exchange for a promise to let up in the search for bin Laden. The Rome-based newspaper said the woman was interviewed in Geneva and described her as Jordanian and about 40.

Thursday’s Internet statement did not repeat the claims about the al-Qaida-U.S. deal, nor did it mention the Italian report.

Instead, she said al-Zarqawi’s death was a stroke of luck for the Americans, repeating an assertion made in a Web statement last month by the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq.

Shades of Kristin Breitweiser?……

‘If you were truthful that you monitored and chased him for a month before his death, it would have been better for you to capture him alive, but you are lying as usual,’ she said to U.S. forces.

The woman vowed revenge against American troops and Iraqi officials, whom she called ‘rented donkeys.’

‘The curse of Abu Musab will follow you, until you get devastated and slaughtered,’ she said. ‘The biggest battle is coming and I want to give you the good news by saying that only one of every 100 of you will survive.’

Nice. It’s obvious the woman is really scorned. Wonder if Cindy Sheehan turns out to be one of her soul sisters? After she moves to Venezuela?