On Wednesday evening, a U.S. air strike on a safehouse just east of Baqouba, Iraq killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of Iraq’s Al Qaeda organization and one of the world’s most active and deadliest terrorists. Shortly, thereafter, Al Qaeda in Iraq issued a statement that read, “The death of our leaders is life for us. It will only increase our persistence in continuing holy war so that the word of God will be supreme.” Hours later, a car bomb blew up in a Baghdad market.

The successful air strike against al-Zarqawi is a positive deveopment in the ongoing global war on Islamist terrorism. Anytime a killer of al-Zarqawi’s stature is taken out of circulation, progress is made. However, Radical Islam, the ideology behind Islamist terrorism, isn’t the product of al-Zarqawi and his like. Rather, al-Zarqawi and his like are the products of Radical Islam.