I wonder what else about Gulf War II will prove to be fictitious.
A senior operative for al Qaeda in Iraq who was caught this month has told his U.S. military interrogators a prominent al Qaeda-led group is just a front and its leader fictitious, a military spokesman said on Wednesday.
Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner told a news conference that Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq, which was purportedly set up last year, did not exist.
The Islamic State of Iraq was established to try to put an Iraqi face on what is a foreign-driven network, Bergner said. The name Baghdadi means the person hails from the Iraqi capital.
Bergner said the information came from an operative called Khalid al-Mashadani who was caught on July 4 and who he said was an intermediary to Osama bin Laden.
He said Mashadani was believed to be the most senior Iraqi in the Sunni Islamist al Qaeda in Iraq network.
“In his words, the Islamic State of Iraq is a front organization that masks the foreign influence and leadership within al Qaeda in Iraq in an attempt to put an Iraqi face on the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq,” Bergner said.
U.S. military officials in recent weeks have been pressed to explain the link between al Qaeda in Iraq and bin Laden’s global network given the military’s heightened focus on al Qaeda in Iraq as the biggest threat to the country.
Hmmm…are they really sure al-Q itself is not a CIA/Karl Rove co-production? Because these guys have a funny way of “turning up” wherever there’s oil that a certain Senor Arbusto would like to grab for his own.
And isn’t it interesting, too, how BushCo always ratchets up the scare when there is something unsavory it has in its own pipes that it wishes to pass unnoticed?
BTW, they have done this with other countries, too. Venezuela has faced numerous accusations of harboring al-Q terror cells that have proved about as genuine as a $3 bill. Do I really need to tell you why? (Oh, what the heck…let Chavecito do it in his own words.)
I just wonder when they plan on announcing they’ve found al-Q cells in Alberta. Probably the day someone there decides to nationalize the tar sands.
