 following wikileaks Scary Daily Telegraph report that Al-Qaida's military leader threatened nuke attack if Osama captured or killed is unsupported by Wikileaks source documents Donald Rumsfeld/Washington Post latest purveyors of fake nuclear meme
The Daily Telegraph reported in its Wikileaks Gitmo reportage on April 25th that: A senior Al-Qaeda commander claimed that the terrorist group has hidden a nuclear bomb in Europe which will be detonated if Bin-Laden is ever caught or assassinated. Source: http://tinyurl.com/3h65cp6 But if you look at the original Wikileaked Gitmo files that the Daily Telegraph is referring to (see below for embedded versions), Khalid Sheikh Muhammad says nothing about Al-Qaeda's course of action if Bin Laden was captured or killed. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad's file (PDF format) does state on page 11 that:
Yet this statement does not occur in the context of any discussion of the capture or killing of Osama Bin Laden. Nowhere in Muhammad's file is there any reference to Bin Laden's potential capture or killing. In a separate Wikileaked Gitmo file for detainee Abu al-Libi, we find this paragraph on page 9 referring to another detainee Sharif Al-Masri:
The Telegraph is treading on dangerous ground. By conflating the Al-Qaida military chief's comment with another detainee's musings, the impression is given of a concrete threat by one person, rather than the Telegraph's own deduction compiled from two unrelated statements by two different detainees, one of which is presented as a vague "belief". The Daily Telegraph published its article on April 25th. Since Bin Laden was reported killed on May 1st, this meme has clearly been injected with new significance and is currently being reported around the world (see updates below)—sometimes with the Telegraph as source and sometimes not. The result is a completely irresponsible message being communicated as the result of the Telegraph's reportage and a lazy media echo chamber. The irresponsibility is magnified by the spectre of likely actual retaliation from Al-Qaeda following Bin Laden's killing, combined with recent heightened nuclear fears around the world in the wake of the Tsunami, which has caused nuclear leaks in Japan. And as of May 12, 2011, Donald Rumsfeld is repeating the same fake meme in the pages of the Washington Post, not the first time he'd spun fake intelligence in that very organ!
Following the meme: Examples of media that echoed* the London Daily Telegraph report (or a secondary report) without checking with the original Wikileaked document* Many more media organizations reported the original Daily Telegraph falsehood between its publication on April 25th and May 1st, before the announcement that Bin Laden was killed. I have confined this list to venues who reported this after Bin Laden was killed, at which point the error has (obviously) become way more serious. Sources: Wikileaked Gitmo DocumentsSource (PDF): http://tinyurl.com/3vrezb2 Source (PDF): http://tinyurl.com/6fpj78a Article originally published close to midnight EST on May 1st. Story updated May 2nd with list of media repeating the false meme, and the addition of the Abu al-Libi PDF (Hat tip to Firedoglake for digging it up). 
more from this section  • following wikileaks: Sacrificing Stratfor: How the FBI waited three weeks to close the stable door (Sunday, March 25th, 2012) • following wikileaks: Sabu the Inciter: Marveling at the FBI's Hacker Frankenstein Monster (Sunday, March 11th, 2012) • following wikileaks: Wikileaks releases "The Global Intelligence Files" (Monday, February 27th, 2012) • following wikileaks: Parody: Google Translation of the Sept 2nd Guardian Editorial: "Julian Assange and WikiLeaks: no case, no need" (Guardian English to Plain English) (Monday, September 5th, 2011) • following wikileaks: Guardian Investigative Editor David Leigh publishes top secret Cablegate password revealing names of U.S. collaborators and informants... in his book (Wednesday, August 31st, 2011) • following wikileaks: Leaked Los Angeles police documents: Radical Islamic Tattoos (Friday, June 24th, 2011) • following wikileaks: Scary Daily Telegraph report that Al-Qaida's military leader threatened nuke attack if Osama captured or killed is unsupported by Wikileaks source documents (Sunday, May 1st, 2011) • following wikileaks: The Wikileaks Story... Visually. (Friday, April 8th, 2011) • following wikileaks: Glenn Greenwald presentation for Lannan Foundation (Tuesday, March 8th, 2011) • following wikileaks: "Quantico Community Relations" Facebook Page shuts down Bradley Manning protests (Sunday, March 6th, 2011) |
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