http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-06-09T161741Z_01_L09261331_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L1-RelatedNews-2
Right......patheticBy Suleiman al-Khalidi
ZARQA, Jordan (Reuters) - 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 on Friday.
For Mohammed Fadhil al-Khalayleh, 40, returning the body of his younger brother, who died in a U-S. 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 organized 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 destabilize 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 symbolize the Islamic insurgency against U.S.-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