Many years ago, Mark Hosenball was banged up for a while by British spooks and I supported the campaign for his release.
Mark Hosenball, 'journalist'
It’s disappointing to see what he’s done with his ‘freedom’. Hosenball writes for Newsweek these days, where he does a fabulous imitation of being part of a latter-day COINTELPRO team himself.
His latest effort is more like notes for a film script than journalism. Even the sub-editor seems unconvinced. It’s title is Dead Man Scheming?
It’s about a very, very scary man called Rashid Rauf. You guessed! He’s a Muslim! He’s also an extremist, a terrorist, he hates our freedoms and although he’s been zapped by remote-control, he keeps popping up again for new episodes.
Hosenball doesn’t know if Mr Rauf is dead or alive at present. There’s some debate about that. Either way, we’re told, he’s probably dangerous.
Read, be alarmed – and appreciate your good fortune there’s a trillion dollar military industrial complex to save you from immortal terror such as this:
The terrifying Rashid Rauf: did Bin Laden teach him the secret of immortality?
…Rashid Rauf, a “high value” Qaeda target during the Bush administration and one of the Easter plot’s alleged masterminds, is alive or dead. U.S. officials believe that Rauf was killed just before last Thanksgiving by a CIA-operated Predator drone strike in Pakistan’s lawless North Waziristan. But according to one U.K. expert who’s been briefed on the case, some British investigators— and Rauf’s own family—think he may have survived. (A U.K. spokesperson had no comment on the matter.)
Rauf, a former British resident, was allegedly a central figure in an August 2006 plot by U.K.-based terrorists to blow up transatlantic airliners. The plot was broken up after authorities in Pakistan arrested Rauf. But in December 2007, he escaped from custody as he was being transferred back to prison from a court hearing in Islamabad. (He allegedly fled via a bathroom window after his guards allowed him to stop for a prayer break; U.S. officials suspected an “inside job.”) The White House was delighted when the Predator operation supposedly took him out. But soon after the missile strike, which U.S. officials said killed five men, including Rauf, his Pakistani lawyer claimed he was still alive and dared authorities to produce the body—which they were apparently unable to do.
Has Bond met his match at last?
Three current and former U.S. officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive matter, told NEWSWEEK that U.S. agencies still believe Rauf was killed in the strike. “While it is not 100 percent confirmed,” said one of the officials, “there are good reasons to believe Rashid Rauf is dead.” In most Predator operations, officials in Washington have overhead video feeds that enable them to follow targets prior to a missile firing and to see bodies following the attack. But sometimes, another of the officials said, the evidence is more ambiguous. “If he is alive,” the official added, “we should regard this guy as a serious threat to U.S. interests.” And even if he’s dead, U.S. and U.K. officials said it’s possible the Easter plot was hatched prior to November 2008—meaning that Rauf’s reach may extend beyond the grave.
