Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal On What He Learned From Al Qaeda's Leader In Iraq Before Leading The Operation To Kill Him

Image: General Stanley McChrystal. Photo AFP

Christopher Woody and Richard Feloni, Business Insider: What Stanley McChrystal learned from Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq before leading the operation to kill him

* As head of Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq, now-retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal led the effort to take out Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
* Al-Zarqawi, as the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, sought to ignite a sectarian conflict in the country after the US invasion.
* In tracking down and killing al-Zarqawi, however, McChrystal came to respect his ability to lead the militants he commanded.

Before Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was blotted out by a US airstrike on June 7, 2006, he made an impression, especially on Stanley McChrystal, who, as a lieutenant general in charge of US Joint Special Operations Command, led the effort to take out the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Al-Zarqawi's zealotry made him a lodestar for an extremist movement that still roils Iraq and the region, McChrystal said on a recent episode of Business Insider's "This Is Success" podcast.

"For about two and a half years, we fought a bitter fight against this guy. And Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had come from a tough town in Jordan, very little education, got involved in crime and things like that in his youth," said McChrystal, who profiled al-Zarqawi in his most recent book, "Leaders."

Read more ....

WNU Editor:  Al-Zarqawi was one tough and hard to get Al-Qaeda leader. Unfortunately .... his death only inspired other fanatics to take his place.