A symbiosis of terror

Turkish police have captured a terrorist named Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa, a Syrian national who had eluded capture by apparently faking his own death at the battle of Fallujah in 2004.

Al-Saqa was fairly important. He had already been tried in absentia in Jordan and sentenced to 15 years along with al-Zarqawi for a failed poison gas attack during the millenium celebrations. His ability to change identities using fake passports was similar to that of Ramzi Yousef, and his faked death was similar to Saddam's number two and the current leader of the insurgency, Izzat al-Douri.

There appears to be a symbiosis here. Al-Zarqawi is oft-described as more a thug than a pious religious freedom fighter, and by people who matter:

BLITZER: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as you well know, of course, better than anyone, is a Jordanian. How did he get to this point in his life, where he is literally the most wanted man in Iraq right now? What led him from Jordan to Iraq?

ABDULLAH: Well, I mean, it's a long history, but he was basically involved in criminal gangs. He was basically a street thug -- that's probably the best way I can describe it -- who then found his way to Afghanistan to fight sort of with the mujahedeen. And he's now in Iraq.

Although I must say that, I think, you know, you say that he's the most wanted man in Iraq. I think that the press have made him much more capable, much smarter and much more of a threat than actually he really is.

Yousef and KSM were similarly described as more terrorists than fundamentalists, people who were driven by their hatred of Shiites and anyone who oppressed the Palestinians. The Ba'athists and Saddamists are themselves thug-like, hate Shiites and actively supported the Palestinian cause. Surely we should wonder who fills the bank accounts these slugs use.

In other al-Zarqawi news, the released German hostage who proceeded to praise her kidnappers to al-Jazeera while saying she wanted to return to Iraq, has changed her story. Now she says the Z-man's group was involved and she feared for her life from the get-go, and would not return. Another al-Jazeera special, or was she advised to re-remember her ordeal?