[Poohbah]

Until I see this independently sourced from someone other than DEBKA, I am going to be extremely dubious.

They've been caught making it up one time too many for my taste.

[LarryM]

The Arab newspaper in London had accounts of the terrorist meeting twice with Bin-Laden's deputy. That is an independent source.

[Dog]

Here is that source...is Jane's Defense good enough...

Zawahiri in the US..

The Egyptian government, whose insistence for many years that Islamic terrorism had become global fell on deaf ears, informed Western intelligence services several years ago that al-Zawahiri travelled with French and Swiss passports in the name of Amin Othman. He is also understood to have a Dutch passport in the name of Sami Mahmoud el-Hifnawi in the early 1990s when he apparently travelled extensively in Western Europe, living at various times in Switzerland and Denmark. Al- Jihad members testified during the 1999 trial in Egypt that he had entered the USA in 1995 using the alias Dr Abdel Moez and while there raised funds used to finance the attack on the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad. According to London’s Guardian newspaper, the US House of Representatives judiciary subcommittee on immigration was told by a counterterrorism expert in January 2000 that al-Zawahiri was one of several Islamic militants who had been granted green card status by the US Immigration Service. Al-Zawahiri seems to have had vastly more experience in clandestine operations than Bin Laden

This good enough??

[monkeyshine]

As a freeper, you probably agree with the FR principles which include something about not really trusting the major media for the whole truth (or any truth) or accuracy.

Now, I can't prove what Debka says, and I know they've been wide of the mark some times, but I am unwilling to write them off completely.

Are they any more unreliable than CNN or CBS? Was there a massacre of Kosovars, or did the media simply reguirgitate Clinton Administration press conferences. Did they do an ample investigation on their own? What about Jenin, did the major media handle it well? What about Clinton's alleged corruption and alleged drug relations... did they cover those stories thoroughly, or were they content with offering only the lurid sex scandals to avoid the hard stories that would have outraged almost all of America if fully exposed?

My point should be obvious. I can't prove it Debka is right or wrong, but I won't hold my breath for any major media outlet to follow a trail of evidence on this story. If Debka has a clue, then the other media has a clue. But only Debka seems willing to follow that clue.

The age of specialty niche media is upon us. Debka will specialize in middle eastern affairs/intelligence/espionage . The CNN's of the world are doomed to just serving mass market pap to the masses with a healthy dose of leftist bias. You'll never get a whole story from the dinosaurs.

[tallhappy]

It's from an Arab newspaper in Britain, not Debka.

[XBob]

Poo, how about citing/documenting some examples. I haven't noticed anything other than they are usually ahead of everybody else.

"They've (DEBKA) been caught making it up one time too many for my taste."