'Syrian' Bomber Caught Alive in Baghdad, U.S. Says

[kentuck]

What's the read on this? Is this person really a "Syrian"? Why would they say he is if he isn't?



http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=031027&cat=news&st=newsiraqforeignersdc

<snip>
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. general said the one attacker captured in the bombings that killed 34 Monday had a Syrian passport, fueling suspicions that foreign fighters were behind a rising tide of violence.

Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division said police shot and wounded the man when he got out of a car and tried to hurl a grenade at a Baghdad police station. The car carried three mortar rounds and was packed with TNT, he said.

"He's a foreign fighter. He had a Syrian passport and the policemen claim that as he was shot and fell that he said he was Syrian," Hertling told a news conference.

Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister Ahmad Ibrahim told the news conference the wounded attacker was now unconscious in hospital.

....more

[Flying_Pig]

1. Bull. I think Wolfowitz may have been in Baghdad setting this

whole thing up. He, and the rest of the PNAC'ers, along with their buddy Ariel Sharon, WANT to invade Syria so bad they are frothing at the mouth. Something stinks about this whole thing. There is no way the Syrians are going to risk doing something like this with the U.S. on their border, and Israel breathing down their necks.

I smell bullshit, and the work of PNAC and Israel.

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

2. The Bushies want to have an excuse to attack other Middle East countries

All they have to do is say the terrorists come from across the border, and there you have it. American fundies would follow like the crusading sheep they are.

[Maple]

3. He could have held

a Canadian passport.

That doesn't mean Canada is in Iraq fighting the US.

There are people there from all over...the idea was supposedly to be flypaper as I recall.

Of course just who is sticking to it and bogging down is quite another matter.

[Oilwellian]

4. Why would the Syrian have a passport?

Are we allowing visitors from neighboring countries enter Iraq? If this guy were a "foreign fighter" wouldn't he have entered the country by simply crossing over a very porous border? I agree....this has PNAC stink to it.

[htuttle]

5. It's the 'piling on' of the 'evidence' that smells

Sure, the guy had a Syrian passport on him. That's possible.

But he SHOUTS OUT that he's from Syria as he's shot? Is this from a movie script? And what astute political timing!

Sometimes too much evidence is as suspicious as no evidence.

[benfranklin1776]

6. Good point.

Reminds me of the scene in Minority Report where the alleged criminal was found dead in a pile of pictures of his supposed victims. The investigating police detective referred to it as an "orgy of evidence." Wagging the PNAC dog crudely.

[Sick of Bullshit]

10. How melodramatic

You'd think he would have said something like "Allah Akhbar" or somesuch.

[Kinkistyle]

12. The evidence was overwhelming.

He was also found to have been wearing this T-Shirt:

http://www.geocities.jp/japanduh/Ilovedam.txt

[bpilgrim]

7. would that be enough to make a case to INVADE?

i'm sure the neo-CONs would agree but will they be brazen enough... :nuke:

peace

[radfringe]

15. "would that be enough to make a case to INVADE?"

more than enough

NEO-cons built their case of lies/deceptions/manipulations to invade Iraq on the basis of rumors and innuendos

Considering that they have a real "SYRIAN" attacking in Iraq - hey it's more than enough to go to war (again....and again....and again)

Remember this is a war on terra - it's going to take many years before we "hunt them down"

My gut tells me that if there is a sliver of a chance than Whistleass won't be reSelected for another 4 years - that we will be invading Syria by September/October 2004

If whistleass is reSelected - we'll be invading a few weeks after the sElection

Syria is toast, we know it and they know it - the question now is if Syria is ready to speed up the timetable and attack Israel before September/October 2004

[not systems]

8. Just remember...

always bring your passport on a suicide mission, NOT!!!

If he was a Syrian wouldn't he have a fake Iraqi passport
to get into position for his attack.

This story is fishy like the "papers" found in the
burned building was fishy.

[maxsolomon]

9. could be true. i don't dismiss it so readily.

it makes sense for the husseins's baath guerillas (if that's who they are) to use foriegn jihaddis as suicide bombers. they're certainly willing, given al queda's rhetoric.

if i were bremer, i would have one military mission: find hussein. he gets more powerful the longer he stays alive.

[Cocoa]

11. I dismissed it immediately

I've found statements by the military to be pretty much useless in figuring out what's going on over there.

In this case, I doubt they know who did this, and I could think of a lot of reasons they would want to play up the foreign element doing these attacks.

[Sushi_lover]

13. With his dying gasp, the schoolchild said....

"It's OK the U.S. tank ran over me. Things are going well in Iraq."

"What a brave young man," the U.S. Army colonel said.

[OneBlueSky]

14. "how con- veeeeen-ient". . .

(to quote the Church Lady) . . . think maybe Syria is in Bush's sights as the next harborer of terrorists? . . . ah, the burdens of the presidency -- do we go after Syria, Iran, or North Korea first? . . . and how long can we put off the draft, given the increasing need for cannon fodder in the Middle East . . . decisions, decisions, decisions! . . . no wonder he's off the wagon . . .

[loudnclear]

16. He could of been a tourist...

If you get out of a car you are a suspected terrorist? They will probably let him die and claim that he confessed. IDF tactics!

[IndianaGreen]

17. Earlier press reports said that the man claimed to be from Yemen

and he did have a Syrian passport. This smells like Al-Qaeda, so why is the US still blaming Saddam for suicide bombings?

BTW, bin Laden's family is originally from Yemen.

[0007]

18. A world traveler taking his passport

to terrorize? I don't think so! This is about as phoney as finding the hijacker's passport a few blocks away, after he flew the plane into the WTC.

I saw this on Jim Lehrer's News Hour last night.