Boy Assad Gets al Qaeda's Message

Remember a week or two ago when the Pentagon declassified the captured Zawahiri memo to Abu Masab al-Zarqawi telling the latter on behalf of Caliph Osama to knock off the slaughter of Shiite Muslims and setting down al Qaeda's latest regional strategic blueprint, which, after conquering Iraq, included Ba'athist Syria on the next round of targets?

D'ya think Bashar Assad got that message?

Yasir Sabhawi Ibrahim, son of Saddam's half brother Sabhawi Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, was arrested in a Baghdad apartment, several days after Syrian authorities forced him to return to Iraq, the officials told The ASSociated Press in a telephone interview from Cairo. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to deal with the media.

One of the officials, who works as a coordinator between Iraqi authorities and U.S. military intelligence, described the purported financier as the most dangerous man in the urgency. The other official, who is a senior member of the Iraqi Defense Ministry, said the arrest was a serious blow to terrorist networks. [my emphasis]

Ibrahim was a moneyman for Zarqawi's operation as well.

The frontrunning nature Arab culture rises to the fore again. Syria, as Iran's junior partner, is all for waging jihad against the infidels next store - unless and until doing so puts the Assad dynasty itself in jeopardy. Not being True Believers themselves, seeing what happened to their "cousin" Saddam, and feeling the heat from the Franco-American duality over their continued murderous meddling in Lebanon, there appear to be limits, after all, to the level of commitment Damascus can offer to the Islamist cause.

Especially when that cause has Boy Assad himself on its hit list.

Keep those cards & letters coming, boys. You're practically fighting our war for us.

[HT: CQ]