Unbelievable! In the UK Sunday Times (datestamped tomorrow, GMT):
The Sunday Times – World
May 08, 2005
Captured Al-Qaeda kingpin is case of `mistaken identity’
Christina Lamb and Mohammad Shehzad Islamabad
THE capture of a supposed Al-Qaeda kingpin by Pakistani agents last week was hailed by President George W Bush as “a critical victory in the war on terror”. According to European intelligence experts, however, Abu Faraj al-Libbi was not the terrorists’ third in command, as claimed, but a middle-ranker derided by one source as “among the flotsam and jetsam” of the organisation.
Al-Libbi’s arrest in Pakistan, announced last Wednesday, was described in the United States as “a major breakthrough” in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.
Bush called him a “top general” and “a major facilitator and chief planner for the Al- Qaeda network”. Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, said he was “a very important figure”. Yet the backslapping in Washington and Islamabad has astonished European terrorism experts, who point out that the Libyan was neither on the FBI’s most wanted list, nor on that of the State Department “rewards for justice” programme.
Hilarious! And so typical!
In the meantime, the man has been through unspeakable hell at the hands of Pakistan’s torturers.
I consider myself an expert on this shit and I had never heard of the guy.
I think I asked the community if anyone had Lexis so they could do a search.
More bullshit.
I think you started an open thread whith that question.
I hadn’t heard of him before, either.
the important thing might be how much coverage this story will get here in our media….or as usual will the initial idea that boy we(well Pakistan) got some high up person so we really are doing a good job. With no follow up to the real story.
What’s more funny is the article states that some American official tried to say the reason he wasn’t on the FBI list is cause we didn’t want him to know we were after him..ah yeah, right and I have a bump on my head from falling at the pumkin cart too.
How much more incompetent or uniformed can our so called intelligence get do you suppose? No wonder bushco has to resort to propaganda.
We don’t even have to try anymore to make these guys look bad. They’re doing our work for us.
Yeah, I almost included that line at the end of the diary, just for some extra laughs.
I’m not sure whether my laugh at all this is really a hearty fulsome belly laugh of humor, or a nervous laugh of fear…
I knew the media was bad. But not this bad. I’m having difficulty facing the reality of how bad things really are in this country. Does… not… compute…
I’m sure this has been said several times over, but NOTHING this administration does suprises me anymore. Having “captured” the number three guy for the third time, only to have it turn out to be a case of “mistaken identity” is pretty much par for the course.