Captured Al-Qaeda Kingpin, Al-Libbi, Is a Case of 'Mistaken Identity'

[satireV]

Christina Lamb and Mohammad Shehzad Islamabad

TimesOnline, NO. 3, May 08, 2005


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.

Another Libyan is on the FBI list - Anas al-Liby, who is wanted over the 1998 East African embassy bombings - and some believe the Americans may have initially confused the two. When The Sunday Times contacted a senior FBI counter-terrorism official for information about the importance of the detained man, he sent material on al-Liby, the wrong man.


See link for entire story

http://tinyurl.com/d67qk

[ewagner]

1. No kidding

some DUers had this right within five minutes of the press release....:crazy:

[tanyev]

2. The Keystone Cops fight the war on terror.

[skypilot]

3. This would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

It's almost amazing how often they make some claim of a recent success only to have the claim debunked before you can count to ten. And it's not just the "successes" either. Just about any story they tell us gets debunked in due time. I'm thinking about how that Pat Tillman story just recently came crashing down.

[orwell]

4. And...

these stories always appear when the Cheney/Bush Crime Family is in the middle of some political trouble.

Orange alert anyone?

[skypilot]

6. And...

...they're too fucking stupid to at least change up the story every now and then. You'd think that by now they'd be claiming they'd caught the #4 guy or the #5 guy but no, it's always the #2 or #3 guy that they've "captured". Again.

[Dhalgren]

5. Bush is such a boob, such a poltroon,

such a nimrod, such a bonehead. You'd think that this would be embarrassing for us, but after all these years you just shrug and say, "Well, everyone knows he's not right." What idiots we are. How stupid does a people have to be to not only tolerate this murderous nincompoop for four years, but to allow him to stay in office for four more? We are unadulterated numskulls. Whenever speaking of Bush, all of these euphemisms for stupidity just come to the surface...

[Moderator]

7. locking

Not Latest Breaking News, article date 4/8/05