A Scary Prank About Al Qaeda and W.M.D.

[brooklynite]

from the New York Times:

The headlines, splashed across The Drudge Report, ABC News and other major news sites last night, were scary indeed:

AL QAEDA TAPE TO CALL FOR USE OF WMD

According to the reports, the tape urged jihadists to use “biological, chemical and nuclear weapons to attack the West,” and a quote from an official source followed, adding further credibility:

“There have been several reports that al Qaeda will release a new message calling for the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against civilians,” FBI spokesman Richard Kolko told ABC News in an e-mail.

If confirmed, this would represent an overt threat, and an unusually intense one. However, the headline turned less dire upon closer inspection. A few hours after the story broke, Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism expert who closely tracks Al Qaeda, posted a blog item dismissing the threat as a prank:

The intel community appears to have (once again) fallen victim to poorly researched open source news reporting … While it is perhaps true that the video offered subtle encouragement for nuclear attacks on the United States, it featured no original content and could have been clumsily strung together with little more than two VCRs. The video was meandering, boring, and difficult to follow–and it certainly was not the product of Al-Qaida.

Gotcha!

[Hydra]

1. Yet another plant by the Pentagon

Who else is sick of the obvious BS from the Ministry of Truth?

[gateley]

2. Several here on DU

were calling bullshit from the git go.

It's frightening to think our intel community is so stupid.