Zarqawi earns Time Magazine's signature 'bloody X' cover

Ron Brynaert
Published: Sunday June 11, 2006

A picture of Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq killed late Wednesday evening in a US air raid attack, appears on the cover of the latest issue of Time, sporting the magazine's signature 'bloody X' across his face, a 'tradition' that began in May 1945, RAW STORY has learned.

Adolf Hitler appeared on the first Time 'bloody X' cover before his suicide became known, and Saddam Hussein earned one in April of 2003 to mark the end of the Iraqi president's reign but before he had been captured.

Zarqawi is the first to appear on a 'bloody x' cover after death had been confirmed. Hussein, of course, still lives, though he may be facing execution.

For the Hussein 'bloody X' issue, TIME managing editor Jim Kelly explained "when regimes get the X."

"During the first days of May 1945, the world did not quite know what had happened to Adolf Hitler," wrote Kelly. "There was no shortage of rumors: he had been arrested by Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler, he was on a U-boat headed for Japan, he had been killed by an exploding shell."

"Unsure of what had happened to Hitler but certain that his rule was finished, TIME ran on its cover a portrait of Hitler with a bloody X through it," wrote Kelly.

Kelly compared and contrasted Hussein and Hitler.

"World War II and Gulf War II, of course, are very different conflicts, and though some commentators have compared aspects of Saddam's tyranny to Hitler's, the two dictators belong in separate leagues of cruelty and terror," Kelly wrote. "But like Hitler, Saddam became the target of a U.S.-led war, and like Hitler, he had a reign that collapsed before the exact circumstances of his downfall became known."

"No one knows for sure whether the Iraqi ruler is dead or alive," Kelly continued. "But this much was clear last week: Saddam Hussein's regime had been 'X-ed.'"

However, the cover story accompanying the Zarqawi cover (Funeral of Evil) clearly indicates that, in this case, no 'regime had been X-ed.'

"The killing of al-Zarqawi deals a blow to al-Qaeda and gives the White House a much-needed dose of good news from Iraq," reads the introduction to the article written by James Carney and Mike Allen. "But the insurgency is not dead, which still leaves open the question of when the U.S. can start bringing the troops home."