I've been hearing something really interesting from a variety of sources the past few days, including Iranians opposed to the Tehran regime. That the Arabic language and Iranian press have both suggested that Iran might have provided intelligence useful to the locating of Zarqawi. The Iranian foreign ministry has praised his killing, according to wire reports, but denied supplying any such intelligence useful in locating him directly to the US:

"It is natural that we, like the Iraqi people, are happy from this occurrence," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

"This doesn't mean that we cooperated with the US in getting him. We had no exchange of intelligence with the US at all (on this)," Asefi said.

That doesn't seem to totally preclude providing intelligence useful to locating Zarqawi to say the Iraqi government or elements of the Iraqi government.

Update: A trusted colleague who got further along in reporting this Wednesday says US sources say -- no, no and no.

Posted by Laura at June 13, 2006 11:37 PM