Wednesday Papers

Khalid al-Hammadi writes about the arms deal with Russia in al-Quds al-Arabi. (Speaking of Khalid, I would recommend his 1999 interview with Tariq al-Fadhli in al-Quds al-Arabi, which I re-read last night mainly because I remembered al-Fadhli having some harsh words for Abu Hasan al-Midhar and Abu Hamza al-Masri. This is much in keeping with our running discussion about the alleged truce and the individuals al-Wahayshi mentioned in his February speech. There were many good parts to the interview – including where al-Fadhli calls al-Midhar a “parasite” – but my favorite was al-Fadhli’s last line when he described al-Midhar and al-Masri’s ideology as one of pronouncing takfir on everyone they didn’t like It was much better in the original Arabic, trust me.)

On the truce, I have yet to see Faysal Mukrim write anything about it in al-Hayat, even though he is the editor of al-Ghad, so depending on how one reads this it could be yet another nail in the coffin of the story.

News Yemen reports on a shooting in Mukalla, but has no information thanks to the refusal of the security head. There isn’t really anything reported in the story, but I just like the way News Yemen writes about the story with no information.

Abdu ‘Aysh has a report in al-Jazeera that features comments by Said Ali ‘Ubayd al-Jumahi, whose book on al-Qaeda I’m currently reading. It is worth checking out. I first came across a link to the report on the al-Faloja forum this morning, so it is being read by a number of people.

Finally, blogging will be a bit light over the next couple of days, as I head to DC for fun in the snow or something like that.