Zarqawi was regarded as the leading operational commander of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, Middle East Newsline reported. Over the last three years, he was responsible for hundreds of car bombings, suicide attacks and abductions that killed thousands of Iraqis, Americans and other foreigners.

"There'll always be someone who will pop up, but this fellow was the mastermind of that network," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "And he was involved in the financing of it. He was involved in activity outside of Iraq."

U.S. and Iraqi officials said Zarqawi participated in beheadings and drafted details of major suicide operations against Iraqi, U.S. and United Nations targets. They said Al Zarqawi planned the suicide bombings of three hotels in Amman, Jordan in November 2005.

"Zarqawi didn't have a number two," Rohan Gunaratna, a senior fellow at Singapore's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, said. "I can't think of any single person who would succeed Zarqawi."

An author of a book that detailed the Al Qaida network, Gunaratna said Al Zarqawi's successor would not be able to match the ruthlessness of the late Al Qaida's leader. Gunaratna said Al Zarqawi was unique in Iraq in his determination to attack U.S. and allied interests in the Middle East.

Amatzia Baram, a leading analyst on Iraq and consultant to the Bush administration, agreed. Baram, a professor at Israel's Haifa University, said, Al Zarqawi's death signals the "beginning of the end of the Al Qaida organization and Sunni rebellion in Iraq."

"Organizationally, Zarqawi was the most efficient executor of mass terror attacks, especially against the Shiites, with car bombs and suicide bombers," Baram said.

Since 2004, Al Zarqawi has exported his network to the Levant, the intelligence sources said. They said he sent operatives and funds to build Islamic insurgency cells in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia.

Al Zarqawi's network, in a policy that sparked concern among some of his Iraqi associates, conducted or financed strikes in Egypt and Jordan in 2005 and 2006. The sources said the Al Qaida chief also sent operatives to help revive the Islamic insurgency in Saudi Arabia.

"It's doubtful Zarqawi's successor would export cells outside of Iraq, at least not in the beginning," the senior source said. "The question is how successful would the new guy be in Iraq."

The sources said Al Zarqawi's regional network was aided by Al Qaida No. 2 Ayman Zawahiri. They said Zawahiri, a former Egyptian military officer, sought to establish an insurgency network that would destabilize the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

On Thursday, U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, said Al Zaraqwi would probably be succeeded by an Egyptian national. Caldwell identified the presumed successor as Abu Al Masri, who had been in Iraq since 2002.

Caldwell said the attack on Al Zarqawi's safe house produced information that led to 17 raids of suspected Al Qaida safe houses in the Baghdad area. He said the raids yielded a "treasure trove" of information.

Intelligence sources disputed Caldwell's assertion that Al Masri would succeed Al Zarqawi. They said any successor must rebuild much of the Al Qaida leadership in Iraq eroded by U.S. operations over the last 18 months.

"Because of Zarqawi's close identification with sectarian violence and attacks on civilians, some of the energy may go out of these kinds of actions," Jeffrey White, a former U.S. government intelligence analyst said. "Surviving AQI [Al Qaida in Iraq] leadership is likely to feel more vulnerable, and to be looking for support from other elements of the insurgency, rather than in pursing controversial and divisive tactics."

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