Surprise surprise, the NYT’s outs al-Qaeda living in our midst and then proceeds to dismiss the guy as nothing but some kid living in his parents house:
When Osama bin Laden issued his videotaped message to the American people last month, a young jihad enthusiast went online to help spread the word.
“America needs to listen to Shaykh Usaamah very carefully and take his message with great seriousness,” he wrote on his blog. “America is known to be a people of arrogance.”
Unlike Mr. bin Laden, the blogger was not operating from a remote location. It turns out he is a 21-year-old American named Samir Khan who produces his blog from his parents’ home in North Carolina, where he serves as a kind of Western relay station for the multimedia productions of violent Islamic groups.
In recent days, he has featured “glad tidings” from a North African militant leader whose group killed 31 Algerian troops. He posted a scholarly treatise arguing for violent jihad, translated into English. He listed hundreds of links to secret sites from which his readers could obtain the latest blood-drenched insurgent videos from Iraq.
His neatly organized site also includes a file called “United States of Losers,” which showcased a recent news broadcast about a firefight in Afghanistan with this added commentary from Mr. Khan: “You can even see an American soldier hiding during the ambush like a baby!! AllahuAkbar! AllahuAkbar!”
Mr. Khan, who was born in Saudi Arabia and grew up in Queens, is an unlikely foot soldier in what Al Qaeda calls the “Islamic jihadi media.” He has grown up in middle-class America and wrestles with his worried parents about his religious fervor. Yet he is stubborn. “I will do my best to speak the truth, and even if it annoys the disbelievers, the truth must be preached,” Mr. Khan said in an interview.
While there is nothing to suggest that Mr. Khan is operating in concert with militant leaders, or breaking any laws, he is part of a growing constellation of apparently independent media operators who are broadcasting the message of Al Qaeda and other groups, a message that is increasingly devised, translated and aimed for a Western audience.
The problem is that there is plenty of evidence that he is working in concert with al-Qaeda, the writer just chose to ignore it. Rusty at The Jawa Report has been working on this guy for over a year. He even sent an email to the Slimes writer asking him to hold off on the story, to no avail:
Michael Moss of the New York Times has outted Inshallashaheed, the al Qaeda supporting blogger who we’ve been investigating for over a year. I’ve been sitting on his true identity for months, but in one fell swoop Samir ibn Zafar Khan, who lives in Charlotte North Carolina, has been identified.
Thanks a lot to Michael Moss and the New York Times for blowing an ongoing investigation into a known al Qaeda sympathizer who lives here in the United States. I’ve known about this piece for a few weeks and wrote the NY Times to ask Moss not to run it. No reply from the Times.
While we appreciate Moss’s commitment to spreading the word about the Internet Jihad, we really wish he would have consulted with us on the matter. He has a right to out Inshallahshaheed as Samir Khan, but doing so has jeopardized an ongoing investigation into a terror ring which begins in the US and ends in Somalia.
Here’s the problem with the NYT’s and other MSM outfits. This writer didn’t see this as a story on helping this country battle a dangerous enemy. No, he saw it as getting a scoop out before his competitors to help his career. Instead of this writer, Michael Moss, doing a in-depth investigation and helping to put this guy behind bars like he would of done with any white collar business owner stealing from the poor he chose to jeopardize an investigation that Rusty had been helping the FBI with for over a year to get his scoop.
Pathetic with a capitol P.
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