zarqawi is evil. really.

* juancole on the bombings in Jordan:

"The other possibility is that the guerrilla war in Iraq is now spilling over into Jordan. Although some of the Sunni jihadis in Iraq call themselves "al-Qaeda" on the internet, locally they are known as Monotheism and Holy War or just Salafis, and they are a different group than the Bin Laden al-Qaeda, with different aims. Some of them are Jordanians (the fabled Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is from Zarqa, a small city not far from Amman). Others are Iraqi Baathists or are run by them. Guerrillas have targeted Jordanians more than once, and blew up the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad at one point.

Either way, this is bad news."

bad news, indeed.

its nice to see JC referring to zarqawi as 'fabled' - he's getting closer to admitting that zarq is as real as President Blinky's popularity

here's a question - in all of the media reporting about the bombings in Amman, they invariably say that zarq did it - and they always refer to the 'failed millenium plot':

"The Radisson hotel was one of four sites terrorists had planned to strike as part of the so-called millennium plot. On December 12, 1999, Jordanian authorities arrested 16 persons who were believed to get ready to strike the hotel, as well as three other sites in Jordan."

no problem there, but why dont they mention the *other* failed plot?

"FOR months, the gang had been working on the plan. Hiding out in safe houses in the Jordanian capital, Amman, they bought cars and vans to carry the bombs, took over blacksmiths’ shops to build the battering rams and set to work manufacturing the 20 tons of chemical explosives they would need for the attack.

The plan was simple and devastating. They would drive the vehicles loaded with chemicals and explosives into Jordanian and American targets in the capital. The blast would spread chemicals across a two-kilometre area. It would kill up to 80,000 people and injure maybe 160,000 more. The poisonous fumes would cause physical deformities and attack the lungs and eyes. It was to be al-Qaeda’s first chemical attack.

The man behind the attacks was Ahmed Fadheel al-Khalayleh, also known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi...
[snip]
The vehicles were loaded up, those that had been bought to punch through the security barriers were made ready, the explosives primed. The vehicles were on their way to the Amman’s general intelligence department when the Jordanian security forces swooped.
[snip]
...an attack so terrible that it would have dwarfed even 11 September."

its kinda odd, right?

evil WMD

80,000 dead

same location

same evil terrorist

and it gets nary a mention.

maybe the story was bogus - go read the Scotsman article though - it sure sounds real. Lots of detail, confessions on TV, stories about money transfers, the requisite mention of Syria and all the other nonsense we see in all of these fucking stories. No waonder we all feel like we are living inside the Truman movie set