more on haririkiri

we have some intriguing new haririkiri related news.

the moonietimes ran an article suggesting that, ya know, syria may not have been involved in the murder of Hawi after all:

"Intelligence sources believe the technology used to kill the former head of the Lebanese Communist Party and a prominent anti-Syrian journalist in Beirut were so sophisticated that only a handful of countries or special services could have carried out the assassinations.

Fred Burton, vice president of counter-terrorism with Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based outfit specializing in intelligence and counter-terrorism analysis, issued a report on June 22 describing the remotely detonated charge that killed George Hawi, the former Lebanese Communist Part chief, as "so sophisticated that few in the world could have done it."
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Among the countries possessing that level of expertise are the United States, Britain, France, Israel and Russia. "This type of technology is only available to government agencies," Burton told United Press International.
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Stratfor's analyst also believes the same technology was used in the killing of Lebanese journalist, Samir Kassir on June 2.
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Syria, however, says Burton, "lacks the finesse" to carry out such a job. Burton said he has investigated "a number of Syrian attacks. "This is not their style."

Stratfor's analysts point out that although Washington was quick to point a very prominent finger at Damascus for the killings, it is difficult to believe that the Syrian regime actually would have ordered Hawi's death."

interesting, no? of course, if syria didnt kill either of theses two folks, then its also easy to imagine that theres some doubt about whether syria committed haririkiri.

i dont specifically know stratfor, but ive heard of them before and understand them to be reasonably credible (if not prestigious). given that their report was out a week ago, you'd think it would have got some coverage, but if you thought that then you are obviously silly, and you dont know nuthin bout nuthin.

in fact, the only papers to carry the UPI story are the WashingtonTimes and something called the "World Peace Herald" (which also appears to be moonie-related from a quick search) - so it appears that the story didnt even hit the UPI wires, despite being written by the "UPI International Editor"

perhaps even more interesting is the fact that the Washington Times story appears to have been scrubbed by news.google, altho the WPH piece seems to have slipped through. i wish i was familiar with news.google's procedures, but i'd have thought that all washingtontimes articles would be included. strange that they aren't. its easier to imagine that the omission would actually require some human intervention than the other way around...

i cant find the actual Stratfor report - most of their stuff appears to be subscription based.

its always a challenge to try to second guess The Reverend, but we do know that the story didnt hit the wires, and we do know that google.news has excluded the washingtontimes story.

it seems that theres some news in there somewhere...

syria is toast