geoswan's Journal: CNN reporting senior al Qaeda bomb-maker maybe killed

CNN is reporting a senior al Qaeda bomb-maker was killed in the CIA airstrike last weekend.

Initially the US claimed that the airstrike killed al Zawahiri, the number 2 guy in al Qaeda. They have backed away from that claim. They say that half a dozen of those killed were members of al Qaeda.

Now CNN has picked up an assertion from some right-wing blogs that Midhat Mursi al-Sayid 'Umar AKA Abu Khabab al-Masri was one of the dead. They say he was the director of Al Qaeda's derunta training camp. He is claimed to have written Al Qaeda bomb-making manuals. Derunta is claimed to have been the camp where Al Qaeda experimented with poison gas.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer was calling this guy Abu al-Masri. That is a problem, because there are at least two other alleged al Qaeda operatives or associates who are also known as Abu al-Masri. The other famous one was, for a long time, the notorious iman of the Finsbury Mosque in Britain. He is a plump guy, missing both hands and blinded in one eye, from his time as a fighter.

CNN can be so careless. Their policy seems to be to put up any old shit, in order to avoid being scooped. Compare the photo on the blog site, and compare it with a photos of the iman of the Finsbury mosque. I think the photo said to have been of the bomber is a photo of the Finsbury iman, prior to his injury.

So.

[Philip K Dickhead]

Which CIA employee or asset gets killed is still news?

Re:So.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Even I don't believe that al Qaida is still working for the CIA- not since the Soviet Union pulled out of Afghanistan anyway.

Re:So.

[Philip K Dickhead]

The "organization" never existed.

Re:So.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Now that I'd agree with- al Qaeda is not an organization. And to reply to the grandparent AC- al Qaeda did exist during the Soviet Occupation, it in fact was created during the Soviet Occupation, as a small part of the Mujadeen. Bin Laden started it, and was originally bankrolled not by his family, but by the CIA.

Re:So.

[Philip K Dickhead]

Even then, it was not an organization - but a database. That's the origin of the name Al Qaeda. It's contracted from the arabic translation of this term.

Presumably, the db held contact information for mujahedin, locations and alliances - etc. It was created so the CIA and ISI [fas.org] - nasty little buracracies - would know who to pay, and how much. Bin Laden was no bomb-thrower or intellect, but a financer and importantly, a pay-master.

Since he probably died in 2002, the latest messages by "Emmanuel Goldstein"

Re:So.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Since he probably died in 2002

I haven't even seen a probably we know where he is since November 2001- can you point me to evidence that he died in 2002?

Even then, it was not an organization - but a database. That's the origin of the name Al Qaeda. It's contracted from the arabic translation of this term.

Interesting idea- but then what about sub groups like "al Qaida in Iraq" who seem to be much more organized and have non-CIA and non-US press releases?

Presumably, the db held contact information for

Re:So.

[Philip K Dickhead]

Posing with the launcher. Posing

Any group can call itself anything. What would you call yourself, if you were competing with six other, roughly equivalent factionary insurgents? What name would catapult attention on your message and effort? What name could you adopt, that would be re-inforced by the propaganda and disinfo needs of your enemy?

Nick Berg was CIA. We know this now. Hell, he was "freelance" building wireless telephony infrastructure in Iraq! What'd he do? Bring cell-towers in his backpack?

Re:So.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I'm still missing the evidence that bin Laden is dead- you'd think that would have been brought out in the 2004 elections because it would have slam-dunked the presidency in favor of Bush.

Same old, same old

[SimianOverlord]

Disinformation and outright mythmaking, reported without the slightest fact checking or follow up. It reminded me of a piece I read on the myth of Zarqawi [blogspot.com] which just goes to show you have to take any naming of operatives killed with a very large pinch of salt.