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Iraq-Jordan
Arab Men Posing as TV Crew Arrested in Baghdad
2004-06-10
Via Lucianne:
Four Arab men posing as journalists were arrested this week when explosives residue was detected on them as they tried to enter the Baghdad headquarters of the U.S.-led administration, a senior U.S. army officer said. The officer, a top security official in the compound which hosts news conferences given by senior U.S. and Iraqi officials and houses the U.S. consulate, said explosives were found in the men’s hotel room after the arrests on Sunday.
"Hey, what's this!"
"That? Er, it's a holy relic given to me by my mother!"
They were posing as employees of an international television company and carried fake identification cards and were trying to drive a van into the compound when they were arrested, he said.
Sounds like a recon mission
"The IDs looked real. But when we called the organization and asked if they were employees, they said they had not heard of them," the army officer told Reuters.
Posted by:

#9  So are they CBS employees or not?
Posted by: Shipman   2004-06-10 6:42:50 PM  

#8  Concur, Dar and rich woods. I've long wondered why existing or novel sniffing and other devices haven't been used in Iraq to ID bad guys. And not just passively, at a checkpoint, but offensively. Remotely monitored sensors, round-ups of folks anywhere near found IEDs for quick screening, etc. Also thought we should have been messing with weapons/explosives caches we come across, putting various taggants all over after discreetly disabling weapons and spoiling explosives -- make for real interesting mass-screenings later.
Posted by: Verlaine   2004-06-10 6:02:33 PM  

#7  Can these guys be positively identified as terrorists? If so, give them the firing squad.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2004-06-10 2:43:30 PM  

#6  Nothing like advertising how to beat security measures.Just wonder what would have happened if they had used "real" employee names ?
Posted by: rich woods   2004-06-10 2:11:49 PM  

#5  Dammit! This is great news, but why publish the details?! Now the asshats worldwide know to wash their hands verrry carefully before their next recon.
Posted by: Dar   2004-06-10 1:42:28 PM  

#4  +------------------------------+
|CNN Identification..............|

|...............................................|
|Habib Mohamed Habib........|
|Occupation : Cameraman.....|
|Nationality : Syrian..............|
|DOB : July 1 1980...............|
|Hair : Brn ..Eyes : Brn..........|
| Ht : 1m80 .. Wt 81kg..........|
+--------------------------------+

PHONY ID?

PS : Photo of Uday Hussein in his early 20s
(Pre-shaved head)
Posted by: BigEd   2004-06-10 1:38:14 PM  

#3  Sounds like a practice run.
They used the same tactic to whack the leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan just before 9/11.
Posted by: Dan M   2004-06-10 1:26:06 PM  

#2  Sez they were caught posing as "employees of an international television company".

That's a wee bit too coy; don't want to get us mouth-breathing warmongers all riled up at al-Jazeera, do they ?
Posted by: Carl in N.H   2004-06-10 1:25:09 PM  

#1  Pull out the lavender panties, two more coming in for "interrogation".
Posted by: BigEd   2004-06-10 1:21:29 PM  

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