Free Republic

Doubts are mounting here about the authenticity of a letter from Al Qaeda's deputy chief to the terror organization's field commander in Iraq. The letter was made public October 11 by President Bush's new director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, in a press release that said, "The United States Government has the highest confidence in the letter's authenticity." If the letter were to be proven a forgery, it would be a blow to the credibility of an office that was created last year at the urging of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States following the intelligence...

...I thought I ought to provide an explanation for terms that Westerners are not familiar with [in Zawahiri's recently translated letter]: [...]Sunna of His Prophet The religion of Islam. It is also the supposed religion of the "turncoat deviants" (see below). Levant Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan; all the regions to the east of the Mediterranian between Turkey and Egypt. Also, a type of leather, but I don't think Zawhiri means that since I don't think he cares whether his dreamed caliphate is founded in heavy coarse-grained leather. It also means "to leave hurriedly with unpaid debts" which is more...