Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi, reportedly goes to sleep every night wearing a suicide belt packed with explosives.
A leading insurgent who met Zarqawi two weeks ago made the claim, the Sunday Times of London reported.
"He never takes it off," said Sheikh Abu Omar Al Ansari, leader of a Sunni resistance group called Jeish Al Taiifa Al Mansoura - Army of the Victorious Sect. "He told me: 'I would rather blow myself up and die as a martyr - and kill a few Americans along the way - than be arrested and humiliated by them'."
His account is the first description of Zarqawi in Iraq since Washington slapped a $25 million bounty on his head, the same as the reward for the killing or capture of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
The sheikh claimed that one of the most widely circulated pieces of supposed Western intelligence about Zarqawi - that he sought treatment in Iraq after losing a leg in a US missile strike on Al Qaeda militants - is false.
Zarqawi sleeps in suicide belt
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