An air-to-ground missile struck close to one of three cars that had been spotted leaving the area near al-Qaim, where more than 1,000 US marines had launched Operation Matador, a sweep aimed at insurgent hideouts in small towns close to the Syrian border.

The other cars raced for cover as the warplane disappeared. When the smoke from the blast cleared, the insurgents found Zarqawi seriously wounded with a piece of shrapnel lodged in his chest.

Three weeks later a senior insurgent commander with close contacts to Zarqawi’s group, known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, has provided a detailed account of Zarqawi’s brush with death.

The Jordanian-born terrorist is believed to be in Iran, where Al-Qaeda sympathisers may be helping him to move to a safe haven in an unnamed neighbouring country for surgery.

The commander revealed that Zarqawi had suffered two serious shrapnel wounds and light burns as a result of the missile attack. “Shrapnel went in between the right shoulder and his chest, ripped it open and is still stuck there,” he said.

The second piece of shrapnel penetrated the same area of Zarqawi’s chest but exited from his back. “There was concern about spinal injuries,” the commander added. “But his ability to move eliminated that fear.”

Zarqawi was carried to the other vehicles and taken to a hideout where he received basic first aid. He initially refused to be taken to hospital, but according to the commander his condition deteriorated.

When he became delirious with fever four days later, aides took him to the general hospital in Ramadi, 50 miles west of Baghdad. A local reporter confirmed to The Sunday Times two weeks ago that Zarqawi had appeared at the hospital, but had left as soon as his wounds were treated.

The man who allegedly masterminded a grisly succession of kidnappings, executions and suicide bombings in Iraq had been a prime coalition target since Arab television networks circulated gruesome videotapes of the beheading last year of Nicholas Berg, a young American entrepreneur who was seized by insurgents as he sought new business opportunities. Zarqawi is believed to have wielded the knife that killed Berg.

Previously regarded by intelligence agencies as a dangerous but comparatively low-ranking associate of Osama Bin Laden, Zarqawi was identified in 2003 by General Colin Powell, then the US secretary of state, as a supposed link between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. In Powell’s controversial presentation to the United Nations of evidence of Saddam’s terrorist connections, Zarqawi was said to have recuperated in Iraq from injuries that he reportedly received in Afghanistan.

Berg’s execution elevated Zarqawi to what one American magazine described as “terrorist superstardom”. As the insurgency grew more violent last year, he became a convenient scapegoat for US officials who were anxious to portray the rebellion as a foreign-led intervention in Iraqi affairs and not as a popular uprising.

The $25m (£13.8m) bounty on Zarqawi’s head eventually matched that of Bin Laden. Although US officials insisted that he was not the prime target of Operation Matador, intelligence sources confirmed that the coalition had received tips that he might be in the al-Qaim area.

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