THE death of al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq is solid good news after six months of rising bloodshed. The targeted bombing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi will not extinguish the insurgency, although it will set it back. There is a danger of overstating the importance of one terrorist with a $25 million (£13.6 million) bounty on his head, whose extravagantly brutal tactics were rejected by many of his fellow insurgents.

But the news, which broke into cartoons and the cookery programme on Iraqi television, will be a huge boost for the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al- Maliki. Yesterday, at last, he won parliamentary backing to fill the crucial posts of ministers of defence and the interior.

Those two appointments, while upstaged by the Pentagon pictures of the dead al-Zarqawi’s face, hold the real key to any future peace in Iraq.

After the raid, Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, said: “The death of al-Zarqawi, while enormously important, will not mean the end of all violence in that country [Iraq]”.

That is surely right, as shown by the car bomb in a Shia district of northwestern Baghdad which immediately followed, killing seven people. But it is still a big blow to al-Qaeda and to the wider insurgency.

Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at Queen Mary London, said: “For once I think it is very important. It’s much more important than the capture of Saddam Hussein. In killing him, you temporarily — I stress temporarily — set back the growth of the transnational jihadi network”.

Al-Zarqawi had “surprising organisational capacity, given his own semi-literate roots, to create around him a kind of jihadi hub”, Dodge argued.

That power may have been dissipating. Pentagon analysts believe that in the past year, the jihadi force in Iraq had become increasingly Iraqi.

“Foreign fighters” such as the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi were mistrusted, even reviled. His taste for egregious brutality — US analysts think that he personally cut off the head of at least one hostage — is thought to have repelled some, who believed that less controversial tactics might serve better.

Al-Zarqawi had no obvious deputy. But the US military predicted yesterday that he would be succeeded by an Egyptian-born lieutenant known as Abu al-Masri.

Major-General William Caldwell, US forces spokesman, said that the military had been aware of Abu al-Masri’s movements for some time and believe he first came to Iraq in 2002. “He may have helped establish the first al-Qaeda cell in the Baghdad area”, Caldwell said, adding that the US believes Abu al-Masri has made roadside bombs and trained originally in Afghanistan.

“We must be careful not to be overly optimistic, as one man’s life does not signal an end to an insurgency,” he said. But he added that killing al-Zarqawi would free the US forces who had been hunting him to pursue other wanted men. US officials expect insurgents to renew attacks to show that they have not been impeded by al-Zarqawi’s death.

“Ultimately he will be replaced, ultimately that network will regenerate, but as a birth present for the new Maliki Government, it can’t get much better,” Dodge said.

The al-Zarqawi drama came just hours before parliament voted overwhelmingly to back al-Maliki’s choices for Interior and Defence ministers, one Shia, one Sunni.

This is the biggest step forward since the parliamentary elections in December. Stalemate in forming a Cabinet has fostered the sectarian violence of the past six months.

The parliamentary vote gives some hope that the political bargain will stick. However many “bad guys” are caught, it is only a settlement between Shia and Sunni that will deliver peace.

Times Recommends

• It’s only Brits who don’t appreciate me, says Blair
• Party’s over for Greek graspers
• White House tightens security for Xmas marathon