NYT Blows Another Investigation

Mon, Oct 15, 2007 at 8:34:00 am PDT

The New York Times has blown another ongoing investigation into Al Qaeda sympathizers in the United States, with a bizarre semi-adulatory article about Samir ibn Zafar Khan (aka Inshallashaheed ), an internet jihadi Dr. Rusty has been following for some time: The Jawa Report: Inshallashshaheed Outted: North Carolina Jihadi in the News.

Michael Moss of the New York Times has outted Inshallashaheed, the al Qaeda supporting blogger who we’ve been investigating for over a year. I’ve been sitting on his true identity for months, but in one fell swoop Samir ibn Zafar Khan, who lives in Charlotte North Carolina, has been identified.

Thanks a lot to Michael Moss and the New York Times for blowing an ongoing investigation into a known al Qaeda sympathizer who lives here in the United States. I’ve known about this piece for a few weeks and wrote the NY Times to ask Moss not to run it. No reply from the Times.

While we appreciate Moss’s commitment to spreading the word about the Internet Jihad, we really wish he would have consulted with us on the matter. He has a right to out Inshallahshaheed as Samir Khan, but doing so has jeopardized an ongoing investigation into a terror ring which begins in the US and ends in Somalia.

But that’s just like the NY Times, isn’t it? In Moss’s defense, he seems to have asked the FBI if there was an investigation into Khan, and they declined to comment.

There’s even a video of him here.

Notice that the Times article is credited not just to Michael Moss; the other writer on the piece is Souad Mekhennet. Also notice that throughout the article they refer to the dead Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as “Mr. Zarqawi.”