LondonTms:DNA Test on Corpse Will Reveal If It Is (al-Zawahiri)

[DeepModem Mom]

The (London) Sunday Times

March 21, 2004

DNA tests on corpse will reveal if it is Bin Laden's deputy

Christina Lamb, Wana, South Waziristan
I watch the hunt for terror supremo


....(General Safdar Hussain, the Peshawar corps commander) said he believed the “gentleman” (al-Zawahiri) was hurt while trying to escape in one of three armoured vehicles that had attempted to break through a Pakistani cordon on Tuesday.

Two of the cars were shot at and crashed, but a third escaped in a cloud of dust. Safdar admitted, however, that the injured person might also be Thuraya, an Uzbek leader.

A senior American official involved in the hunt for Bin Laden said that al-Zawahiri may already be dead. According to his version of events, the Egyptian was in the escaping car and was shot by Taskforce 121, the shadowy rapid reaction force comprising special forces and CIA agents that had helped to capture Saddam Hussein last December.

The body, he said, had been retrieved from the wreckage and was undergoing DNA tests to confirm whether it was that of al-Zawahiri. In deference to the US forces’ hosts, any announcement was being delayed to make it look as if it were a Pakistani-run operation, as well as to have time to use any information garnered to capture other fighters....


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1046028,00.html

[acmavm]

1. Oh crap, will someone make up their frigging minds. First its OBL, then

it's al-Zawahiri, then it's not, then the Pakistan government says oops, it may be a mistake and it's not the guy. Now it's DNA testing time. Do any of these doofuses know what they're doing?

I think it was a bunch of people who were not too happy about a bunch of commandos coming at them with loaded weapons. I believe that anyone with a weapon would fight like hell if they were in that position.

Hell, we'll probably never know the truth about most of it anyway, for example, was it or was it not the Kurds who caught SH? Now there's a story that died an untimely death.

[Career Prole]

2. Exactly!

I wonder if the British assumed the Minutemen were trying to protect a "high value target" based on the stiff resistance?

[yardwork]

3. Bush just forgave Pakistan a ton of debt

so Pakistan has every reason to produce some kind of "results."

I don't believe a word the Bush administration or their allies say anymore. Not one word. I'm more cynical now than I have ever been about the U.S. government. This is worse than Watergate.

[maggrwaggr]

5. watergate was a bad $5.00 check compared to these guys

It doesn't get much worse than these fuckers.

[Rex]

4. "...escaped in a cloud of dust."

Gee, just like in the movies! :eyes:

[Safi]

6. Where did they get a sample of his DNA in the first place?

This sounds like bullshit. You hafta have a sample of his DNA to know if its him or not. Where do they get a sample of the DNA of an Egyptian terrorist that runs around the mountains of Afghanistan?

[burrowowl]

7. Good question!?

Do have family members lined up to give sample, were we close enough to get his coffee cup hence silava, ....????

[DeepModem Mom]

9. Good point -- this is from British press, but I posted , FWIW --

Article appeared on the frontpage of London Sunday Times, today.

[stevedeshazer]

19. No problem

Diebold does the DNA testing (just kidding)

[darkstar]

20. Cable news said Az's son is in custody

somewhere in Europe, I believe.

Heard this on the wall-to-wall day last week (Thurs?) when there was talk of it being a fight to the finish, i.e., no dead body yet but speculation as to ability to get ID in aftermath. Sorry to be so vague and that I have no link. I'll check.

edit:

What a shitty era of reporting we live in. Obviously, folks w/ half a brain are going to ask this question about DNA matching. Google news search on "AZ, son, DNA" yeilded nothing. "AZ, dna" yeilded long list w/ one blurb--Chicago Trib--noting that AZ's "kin" in custody. Required reg, so I didn't bother.

How pathetic that such a basic fact--i.e. how it is possible that they *might* make match--is left out of all the stories I did come across. This is not to say the story I heard on cable is true, btw. The shite reporting know's no bounds.

[markses]

8. A bigger load of horseshit one cannot imagine

Stupid. Ooops, remember our big media blitz about the imminent capture of al-Zawahiri. That turned out to be Pakistan playing the current crop of administration imbeciles for stone cold marks. They cranked up a phony operation, and the slathering idiots in DC forgave $500 million in debt. Then, aw shucks, maybe it ain't him after all. In order to make up for this embarrassing treatment, we'll now have a phony story about Zawahiri "already" being dead (oh, we got 'im, alright). Prediction: tests inconclusive (wink wink).

The question is: Will Zawahiri appear on TV with a current newspaper, urging that the rumors of his demise have been , er, greatly exaggerated?

These fucking dolts are really too much to bear. Any child would have known that Musharef was playing an angle. Not Powell, Rummy and Bush. It's true: They're simple idiots.

[Teaser]

10. my bullshit detector is

pinned in the red folks.

This is another example of bad british tabloid journalism.

[DeepModem Mom]

11. Times is not a tabloid, but it's British --

[Teaser]

12. They are not a tabloid, but their journalism

is often tabloid-quality.

[DeepModem Mom]

13. And, of course, they're unfortunately owned by R. Murdoch --

[keithyboy]

14. Unless al-Zawahiri appears on TV with a current newspaper, he's dead.

Same is true of Osama. I thought that Osama was killed last year during the opening of the invasion.

[Ravy]

18. No, that was Saddam Hussein, an OBL look-alike

that was killed in the opening barrage of "shock-and-awe" (or was it "shuck-and-jive").

Anyway, OBL has been killed many times before and since. Check the news reports.

[Rex]

15. Did this guy have a secret lovechild? How do they know what

his DNA looks like? Did the CIA snatch a lock of hair when he wasn't looking?

[daleo]

16. Maybe given a blood sample is a condition of employment for the CIA

After all, lots of these people were sub-contractors for the CIA during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Perhaps the CIA had the foresight to take a few samples "for the records of our health care provider".

[keithyboy]

17. Are the DNA results in yet? How long does it take?

I guess if it had been al-Zawahiri they would have told us by now. Bush needs all the help he can get.