Dal Counterterrorism Blog, un’interessante controversia sull’effettivo ruolo del recente uomo di Bin Laden catturato in Pakistan…
The Christian Science Monitor has posted a story titled, "The big catch that wasn’t?" quoting a Sunday Times of London story that claimed that "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." The CSM and the New York Daily News (yesterday) are apparently the first American media outlets to run with the Sunday Times piece. But we knew about it here 36 hours before the Times posted it. We heard about the possible Sunday Times story last Friday, and some of the Contributing Experts and I started to chase this down with contacts in the counterterrorism community. By Friday night, we had been told that the captured al-Libbi is, indeed, "the right guy," although clearly there was confusion over some of the details, as the Sunday Times story discusses (e.g., the FBI apparently gave them details on the wrong al-Liby, and ransom offer amounts were confused).
On Saturday night U.S. time, when the Sunday Times ran the story on the web, I made the same editorial decision that I make with respect to all counterterrorism stories that I find around the world – if it seems pretty outlandish in its claims, and it isn’t supported, I won’t link to it on this blog, no matter how reputable the original outlet. I make that decision every day on about 150 stories. The Sunday Times story had one named source for a story of major impact, and all other sources at our disposal disagreed with that one. So I didn’t post it and waited to see who would research it further and add better evidence. Nobody has done that – the CSM and NYDN stories don’t include a single new named source. But after seeing the assertion cited on some blogs, I thought I should tell the story of the story and our involvement in it, and let readers decide.
Con un aggiornamento: The NYDN ran a story on May 5 that cited "disagreement" over al-Libbi’s importance and quoted "an official at another intelligence agency" as doubting that al-Libbi was "#3." So they did original reporting before the Sunday Times article and deserve credit for it.