Timing of Terrorist Captures Politically Motivated?

[varun]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5594697/site/newsweek/

A Clockwork Orange Alert?
The timing of the arrests in Pakistan and the alerts in the United States continue to raise questions about the politics of terror

Aug. 3 - The timing’s a little strange, no question about that, and, yes, maybe a little embarrassing for those of us who like to shoot holes in conspiracy theories. Last week I wrote a skeptical column about “October Surprises,” dismissing out of hand the notion among Bush-haters that the president or his men have an already-captured Osama bin Laden squirreled away some place so they can pop him on the public at a vote-grabbing moment just before the U.S. presidential election. “Give me a break,” I said.

Then, well, something kind of like that happened. No, it’s not OBL. And no, it’s not October yet. But last week right at the end of the Democratic National Convention—at just that moment when John Kerry was supposed to be getting a huge boost from the undivided attention of the media and the American people … Bingo! News broke that Pakistan caught one of Al Qaeda’s Most Wanted. Actually, you’ve probably never heard of him: a Tanzanian named Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani (a.k.a. "Foopie") who allegedly helped blow up the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es-Salaam six years ago this month. But still, the timing of the announcement was an uncanny surprise...

...Ghailani—the latest catch—is a black African. And there aren’t many of them in Pakistan. He was caught in the industrial city of Gujrat, and he had been living with friends and extended family in Pakistan for the better part of six years. That is, ever since the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were blown up. His picture has been posted on the Web for years, along with a $5 million reward from the United States government. And nobody noticed this guy until last week?...

[Longhorn]

1. Interesting.

Yet it is almost uncanny, as Gohel says, that “whenever Musharraf is under pressure he seems able to produce one or two Al Qaeda fighters like a magician out of a hat.”


So Musharraf may have his own motives that happen to coincide with Bush*'s. One hand washes the other.

Thanks for the post!