Somebody finally asked...

...the White House to clarify whether top tier core-AQ terrorist Adnan Shukrijumah was killed in a raid by the Pakistanis last weekend or not:  



It's pretty amazing the White House spokesman would have to 'take the question' to get Major Garrett some 'clarity' on whether the guy is dead or not.  Don't they know by now?  Why wouldn't they be heralding it as a major blow in the GWoT?  Garrett was saying that CBS News was getting their confirmation from senior government officials.  But both the Rewards for Justice and FBI most-wanted terrorist sites show no change.

I don't pretend to know what's going on here.  I do know that many terrorists have "died" and come back to life--the most recent being the Khorasan (Core-AQ) bomb maker supposedly killed by US air strikes in Syria last month but now reportedly still alive.  So proclaiming AQ leaders dead, especially when the Pakistanis are involved, is probably risky.     

MORE, AND IT'S UNBELIEVABLE  12/12/14

Here's another clip of a US Government official being asked to confirm the death of Shukrijumah..



She's fumbling around over details about the death of a major Core-AQ terrorist?   Hmmm.

Why is the administration downplaying this?   Most believe he was killed.  Could it be something to do with the Pakistan-US relationship?  As Garrett pointed out, it sounds like a positive development. Yet the spokespeople are giving nothing.  It's been a week, they clearly have no intention of using this as PR.  So why not?   

Could it be because Shukrijumah allegedly crossed the US-Mexico border several times--even possibly flying an aircraft into a US airport--before his demise?  And that the administration would rather lose the PR value from the killing of a major AQ kingpin than admit that said kingpin was crossing the 'secure' southern border?  And targeting Oprah, of all people!  Yeah, must be the latter.

Notice also how no US journalists smell a story here.  None of them followed up on Garrett's question to Earnest; none followed up on the Arab journalist's question to Psaki.  So the story about the takeout of a major Core-AQ terrorist is just going to vaporize into the ether.