One month later, the White House enjoyed a brief respite from the tide of grim news with the announcement of the capture of Saddam Hussein during a December 13, 2003, raid on a remote farmhouse near his hometown of Tikrit. But the former dictator’s arrest brought no relief from the now daily attacks on coalition troops and Iraqi civilians. Zarqawi, after months of fighting from the shadows, was gaining confidence as the de-facto leader of a full-blown insurgency in Iraq. His movement, now supported by thousands of embittered Iraqis and sympathetic Islamists from across the Muslim world, would
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