"The resources that were allocated to track Zarqawi will now be directed to chase other people," said Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security advisor.
"The plan is to go after secondary targets," he said
Death on stretcher
The US military has revealed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was still alive and tried to escape from a stretcher when American troops reached his hideout where warplanes had dropped two bombs that killed him.
The mortally wounded Sunni Arab militant mumbled before he died from injuries he suffered during the air strike in a village north of Baghdad on Wednesday, said Major General William Caldwell, the US military spokesman in Iraq.
Bush response
US President George W Bush, seeking to quell speculation that the killing of al Qaeda in Iraq's leader would open the way for US troop reductions, said it will not end the war or the violence but would "help a lot".
"Removing Zarqawi is a major blow to al-Qaeda. It's not going to end the war, it's certainly not going to end the violence, but it's going to help a lot," President Bush told a news conference with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
President Bush, facing low popularity over the war in Iraq, also said he would like troops out as soon as possible.
Major General Caldwell, addressing Pentagon reporters by teleconference, said: "Zarqawi, in fact, did survive the air strike."
Iraqi police first reached the site and put him on a stretcher before US ground forces arrived.
"They immediately went to the person in the stretcher (and) were able to start identifying by some distinguishing marks on his body.
They had some kind of visual, facial recognition," he told the briefing.
"Zarqawi attempted to, sort of, turn away off the stretcher. Everybody re-secured him back onto the stretcher, but he died almost immediately thereafter from the wounds he'd received from this air strike," Major General Caldwell said.
Buoyed by the death of a man blamed for a campaign of car bombs and beheadings, Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani said it was "a new beginning" for Iraq.
But Zarqawi's followers have vowed to fight on and al-Qaeda watchers said his successor may be a local figure, with close ties to Osama bin Laden, who focuses attacks more on US and Iraqi troops and less on brutal beheadings and suicide bombings.