Courtsey BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5058534.stm
Arab TV coverage of Zarqawi death
The first report of the death of Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was observed by BBC Monitoring on the pan-Arab TV station al-Jazeera.
At 0650 GMT al-Jazeera reported that Iraqi TV was quoting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as saying that Zarqawi had been killed. The TV added that "the Pentagon has not thus far confirmed the report".
At 0702 GMT the Iraqi TV station al-Sharqiya announced that the prime minister would soon give a news conference of "paramount importance".
At 0722 GMT the pan-Arab al-Arabiya TV carried a screen caption quoting its correspondent reporting: "Maliki announces the death of Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq."
Further details
As viewers waited for the news conference, details began to emerge on other Arabic TV stations.
Al-Zarqawi had been killed during a US air raid, reported al-Arabiya.
"Al-Zarqawi has been killed in air raid north of Baquba," said a screen caption broadcast by Iraqi Patriotic Union of Kurdistan KurdSat TV at 0740 GMT.
Live announcement
Iraqi TV stations broke into their regular schedules at 0741 GMT to bring their viewers the news conference live.
The children's cartoons on al-Sharqiya TV stopped and al-Iraqiya TV interrupted its regular cookery programme.
The scene switched to Baghdad, as Iraqi networks ran the news conference live. Viewers saw Prime Minister Nouri Maliki make the announcement at 0742 GMT:
"Today al-Zarqawi has been killed." The announcement was followed by applause and cheering.
First reactions
As the news conference continued, al-Iraqiya TV provided a consecutive translation into English.
Pan-Arabic stations combined clips from the news conference with recent footage of al-Zarqawi and reports on his background.
Al-Arabiya cited the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, congratulating the US military but warning that "the killing of Zarqawi will not put an end to violence in Iraq".
Al-Arabiya also quoted al-Zarqawi's brother as saying that the killing "was expected".
*BBC Monitoring selects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaux abroad.
