Jubilant Iraqi Shiites distributed sweets and jumped for joy in the streets Thursday to celebrate the killing of Al Qaeda chief in Iraq Abu Mussab Zarqawi, who had declared all-out war on their community. In the capital's Shiite-dominant Kadhimiyah neighbourhood, women and children were seen distributing chocolates to Iraqi soldiers as they danced in the streets. Iraqi army soldiers were also seen dancing at city checkpoints, while in the neighbourhood's revered Kadhim shrine many Shiites were seen offering prayers to thank Allah for the death of country's most wanted militant.Seventy-year-old Shiite woman Shams Abdallah came to the shrine to annoint herself with henna as a symbol to thank God for Zarqawi's death. "My sons were killed in 2005 by Zarqawi's people as they travelled between Ramadi and Fallujah," she told AFP, naming Iraq's two most restive cities in the west, a one-time operational ground of Zarqawi.
"We don't need water, we don't need electricity, the most important is that Zarqawi is dead," said Majid Hashim Assadi, 60. "With the death of the great Satan, you have began the defeat of the infidels. This is a major victory for the Iraqi people. We can say that today the Iraqi and US forces stopped terorrism."