Thursday, July 07, 2005
"Al-Qaeda" Message May Be Fake
Just picked this up: London Attack Message May Be Phony
MSNBC TV translator Jacob Keryakes, who said that a copy of the message was later posted on a secular Web site, noted that the claim of responsibility contained an error in one of the Quranic verses it cited. That suggests that the claim may be phony, he said. "This is not something al-Qaida would do," he said.Other analysts who monitor militant Islamic Web sites also were doubtful as to the message's authenticity:
"I don't think that this message is very reliable," said Rita Katz, director of the Washington-based SITE Institute which tracks militant Web sites and researches terrorism. She said the claim was not posted using a secure channel that would ensure authenticity, for example by having a webmaster upload it to a password-protected Web site that had posted reliable militant information in the past. "El qal3ah is a Web site on which many, many messages have been posted in the past that turned out not to be authentic," Katz said. British analyst Eedle said, "I think the way to judge Internet messages is by what the Islamists ... online themselves think of them. Genuine communiques like the ones from Iraq are very rapidly copied to a host of different Islamic Web sites and e-mail lists. This one hasn't (been)."Remember, we don't know much of anything yet. Actions based on false assumptions are worse than no actions at all.
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