[Boot Hill]

"Loftus never said AZ was killed."

OK, so let's look at what Loftus did say about that offensive in South Waziristan and Paktikia Province to see how totally unreliable his so-called "intel" was.

Loftus claimed that the whole operation was a ruse perpetrated by Musharref, and that both Zawahiri and OBL along with a large contingent of their troops, were no were near that area. Loftus claimed the Americans were being "had" by a duplicitous Musharref. The problem with that outrageous claim is that it was the U.S. (not Pakistan) that developed the original communications and photo intel placing both OBL and AZ in the area in the first place.

And by the time the operation drew to a close, we and the Pakis had killed or captured multiple hundreds of Taliban and al-Qa'ida terrorists, and made South Waziristan a very dangerous place for the terrorists to seek sanctuary or operate in.

Loftus is not always wrong, but he is wrong so often (because of his built-in left-wing biases) that he CAN NOT be relied upon for anything other than entertainment.

(And it didn't go unnoticed that you failed to address Loftus' ridiculous claims about the Jordanian WMD attack!)

--Boot Hill

[Allan]

The problem with that outrageous claim is
that it was the U.S.
(not Pakistan)
that developed the original communications and photo intel
placing both OBL and AZ in the area in the first place.

Documentation, please.

[oceanview]

Loftus' story actually took place over a week before the Pakistani "offensive" - indeed he said the US forces may have killed AZ, they were getting his brothers DNA from Egypt to try and ID the body (i heard the show and posted it). But it didn't pan out.

By the time (over one week later) the Pakistani operation made the claim that they had killed AZ, Loftus said it was a ruse right away. So you are correct, it was US intel, but the time frame of the events was shifted.