Could this possibly be true?

Via WND, I find in the early hours of this morning that a French daily newspaper L'Est Republicain has published that the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin-Laden died within days of contracting typhoid fever in Pakistan.

"According to a commonly reliable source, the Saudi police believe that Osama Bin Laden has died," said a Sept. 21 confidential note transmitted by the Directorate-General of External Services.

According to the note to be published by the L'Est Republicain, the Saudi police "would try to obtain more details, in particular the location of the burial site, and then announce the news officially." The DGSE specified in the note that no "jihadist Internet site has for the moment been made aware of the death of Osama bin Laden."

According to the note, "the head of al-Qaida may have fallen victim to a strong case of typhoid fever while in Pakistan, on August 23, 2006," and may have died within a matter of days.

Developing....

Catch up with extensive updates below:

What is it about the inimitable paper of disrepute, the mighty New York Times, that makes it constitutionally unable to tell the truth?

In these troubled times of rabid Pallywood, the NYT publishes what appears to be a staged photograph of a 'Dead Man Walking' in Tyre, Lebanon. (NYT photo essay with audio here, although caption now changed, see update)

Have the left become so out of touch with reality in this war on terror that their unwarranted superciliousness and condescension overrides the most basic principals of journalism? Intentionally or not, they have become the driving force behind the propaganda machine of the mullahcracy of Iran in the West.

At this crucial time in history, when the world is at the brink of war with Islamofascism, nothing so illustrates the left's nihilism as does its stand against Israel.

UPDATE: Always good to know that we do make a difference after all. The NYT changes its photo caption, and issues a correction. John Hinderaker remains unimpressed.

Palestinian PM and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is kicking Hamas' global spin campaign into overdrive as an op-ed in The Washington Post. I beg your pardon?

You heard correctly. But you are surprised that WaPo has endorsed these shameless lies penned by this terrorist thug? Don't be. As soon as the MSM saw the writing on the wall for Abbas, a new 'moderate' had to be inaugurated, and fast: As Palestinian PM and Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh clearly had to be the man.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to resign, dismantle the Authority and leave the Territories [...]. Abbas made the statements during a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who requested that he use his authority to help free Cpl. Gilad Shalit. Abbas responded that he no longer had any authority

Consider the WaPo article as a formal gesture; recognizing Haniyeh's ascendancy to 'moderate' status, which Yasser Arrafat so famously gained in 1994 when he won the Nobel Peace Prize and shared it with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres - may the Nobel committee, who so permanently and disgracefully dishonored the Peace Prize for all future generations with their nomination of this murdering thug, and to top it, alongside these two great statesmen, forever relive the stigma of their calculated reasoning - and who so spectacularly squandered this coveted status at the end of his life.

Meryl Yourish is wandering whether Jimmy Carter wrote Haniyeh’s column, by any chance. Nice one Meryl. Didn't he write some speeches for Yasser Arafat in his day?

The BBC is now teaching us the wonders of its biased vocabulary when reporting on the news in the Middle East. From the BBC World News Editor Jon Williams, already under extreme fire in his comment section for this incoherent babble, is advocating the word 'captured' rather than 'kidnapped' in the case of Israeli Corporal Shalit, and any other soldier who is taken by terrorists :

But deployments - who goes where - are only part of what we've been wrestling with. As ever in reporting the Middle East, language - and the choice of words - is incredibly important. Was the soldier kidnapped or captured, were the Hamas politicians arrested or detained?

Our credibility is undermined by the careless use of words which carry value judgements. Our job is to remain objective. By doing so, I hope we allow our audiences on radio and television to make their own assessment of the story. So we try to stick to the facts - civilians are "kidnapped", Cpl Shalit was "captured"; since troops don't usually make "arrests", the politicians were "detained". Doubtless some will disagree. But that's, in essence, the heart of the story - two competing narratives.

I wonder where the BBC will file today's bombshell, which thus far only one tabloid has published?

David Gaubatz, an ex-intelligence officer, and former special investigator for The Pentagon, has been trying for three years to get the American weapons inspectors and the media to listen to his claims that no less than four sealed underground bunkers in southern Iraq are believed to contain stocks of chemical and biological weapons. h/t Antimedia:

According to Gaubatz "fresh" WMD were buried under the Euphrates River near Nasiriyah, in southern Iraq. He and other federal agents (civilians) identified, with the help of some local Iraqis who are now in the US (no doubt for their protection), four separate sites where WMD were buried, and to date no one has even bothered to check them. Charles Duelfer, according to Gaubatz, did a "substandard" job running the Iraqi Survey Group, the group tasked with tracking down Iraq's WMD.

Well that didn't take long. The dynamic duo who blew the cover of the NSA surveillance program designed to monitor who is co-operating with al-Qaeda, is back in full force. Eric Lichtblau and James Risen of the inimitable New York Times, the newspaper for the misinformed, are on the war path again. The NYT declined a White House request last night not to publish a story about the Government's legal inspection of monies flowing in and out of the country post 9/11.

Obviously the Administration officials were concerned that news reports of the program would diminish its effectiveness and could harm overall national security, but that minor detail would never worry the famous paper of ill repute. Keep telling yourself that they are protecting your civil liberties, and that words like "classified anti-terrorist program" are irrelevant

Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.

The NYTimes has an in-house produced video showcasing Licthblau as he "reveals a secret Bush administration program to access financial records." (h/t Michelle Malkin)

All hell broke loose, to coin a phrase, on Fox News this weekend when host Julie Banderas told one of the most hated cultists Shirley Phelps-Roper to go to hell. A discussion about protests at the funerals of fallen American soldiers turned into an astonishing shouting match on national television. Watch the FNC host deliver Phelps-Roper a slam dunk. Video courtesy of Michelle Malkin. Transcript WND:

“What would you do if you had a son in the military?” an outraged Banderas asked. “Would you damn him to hell as well? Because you’re gonna join him there if you had a son!”

“I have eight sons and I have three daughters,” responded Phelps-Roper, “and none of them would dare, dare fight for a nation who has made God their No. 1 enemy.”

Banderas engaged in a heated, rapid-fire, name-calling exchange with Phelps-Roper, which included: Banderas: “The Bible says ‘the fear of the Lord is hatred of evil,’ [from the Book of] Proverbs. ‘Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.’ Perverted speech like yours: ‘God hates fags.’ You are preaching absolute B.-., and you know the final letter.”
Phelps-Roper: “If you don’t tell them that this nation is full of idolatry, full of adulteries …

Banderas: “Full of insane people like yourself, ma’am.”

You know when the Washington Post publishes three full pages of tight fitting text on the incident in Haditha, Jack Murtha's "murdered in cold blood" story is in trouble:

A sergeant who led a squad of Marines during the incident in Haditha, Iraq, that left as many as 24 civilians dead said his unit did not intentionally target any civilians, followed military rules of engagement and never tried to cover up the shootings, his attorney said.

Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, 26, told his attorney that several civilians were killed Nov. 19 when his squad went after insurgents who were firing at them from inside a house. The Marine said there was no vengeful massacre, but he described a house-to-house hunt that went tragically awry in the middle of a chaotic battlefield.

Don't miss carefully reading every word of Josh White's page one story, which I have tried to condense for you. Pay particular attention to the account that a fragmentation grenade was thrown into the room, and one Marine fired a series of "clearing rounds" through the dust and smoke. The time span of the incidents seems to be a matter of minutes rather than several hours as the original Times account suggested.

If this turns out to be true, it will pale Rathergate into insignificance in comparison, and give the MSM another black eye they so dearly deserve.

AP is scraping the bottom of the barrel today: "unidentified source claims a man looking like wounded al-Zarqawi was beaten by American troops". Oops sorry, apparently he was "pulled out of the ambulance and beaten". CBS is right on top of this unsubstantiated claim: "U.S. troops arriving on the scene wrapped the man's head in an Arab robe and began beating him."

I am shocked, shocked, at the possibility of this gross misconduct. Having dropped two 500 lb bombs in order to eliminate the terrorists in the first place, they really should have dropped to their knees and given the man immediate mouth to mouth resuscitation. In fact isn't killing a terrorist against the Geneva convention? Well if not, surely we can dig up some other agreement which this brutal act would contravene. Despite the setbacks "Democrats Vow to Fight On After Zarqawi Loss."

Peter Wehner, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the White House's Office of Strategic Initiatives, highlights what most of us keep forgetting because the MSM refuses to ever cover it:

The death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi also underscores the difficulty al Qaeda terrorists have been encountering in Iraq. Most of the media narrative about Iraq has been on the difficulties the United States faces. Those difficulties are real -- but they are far from the full story. What goes almost unnoticed is the enormous series of body blows our enemies have sustained. We have by now intercepted several key communications among terrorists in Iraq over the years -- and we keep learning about their despair at the progress of democracy and their unhappiness with the course of events.

The death of Mr. Zarqawi will add immeasurably to their troubles.

Media spin did of course take it much further:

Many in the Arab world doubted whether the Jordanian-born Zarqawi even existed. (Some reports indicate that Jordanian intelligence provided information on the location where he was killed.)

Living up to the Arab conviction in "conspiracy theories", many argued that Zarqawi was created by the Americans to justify their problems in Iraq. Whenever something went wrong, they would blame it on Zarqawi.

Some especially jaded champagne communists of the Left are calling the killing a stunt and make every effort to discredit the struggle for Iraq's liberation. Their doomsday dogma for Iraq remains unchanged despite the clear assessment of Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. After all, who is he to know...

The press is all a flutter, news agencies around the world are buzzing with the news that the the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the militant who led a bloody campaign of suicide bombings, kidnappings and hostage beheadings in Iraq, is dead...again. I say again, because his death has been a subject of flurried debate several times during the course of the last couple of years. This time he really is dead, and losing his head does not really count, nor does setting the Muslim mind on fire. Shame though, he was scheduled for martyrdom, but I guess the 72 virgins will after all prove the better option.

He has reportedly been killed in a U.S. air raid northeast of Baghdad [confirmed now], as a result of 17 raids overall

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said al-Zarqawi was killed along with seven aides Wednesday evening in a house 30 miles northeast of Baghdad in the volatile province of Diyala.

"Today, al-Zarqawi was eliminated," al-Maliki told a news conference, drawing loud applause from reporters as he was flanked by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and U.S. Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Al-Maliki said the air strike was the result of intelligence reports provided to Iraqi security forces by residents in the area, and U.S. forces acted on the information.

"Those who disrupt the course of life, like al-Zarqawi, will have a tragic end," he said.

Khalilzad added "the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is a huge success for Iraq and the international war on terror."

I shall keep you posted as the news comes in throughout the day, ABC news came in first, it is still 3.00am EST, and nothing yet on the Blogs. [Oops correction, sorry Vinnie] I am dying to see what the reactions will be as the news spreads throughout the Jihadi cyberspace. Allahu Akbar indeed.

Andrew Cochran @ Counterterrorism Blog confirms that "facial recognition, fingerprints, and DNA testing confirmed he was killed at 6:15 pm on June 7 in Iraq".

Are we too blasée? Do Republicans not care for the environment? Are we placing partisan ideology before the healthy future of our children?

These and a flurry of related questions that have been bugging me over the last few days since Vice President Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" hit the silver screen, giving his high-profile campaigning on the threat of global warming a decisive push.

Let me be upfront and tell you outright, that I have not been able to reach any halfway satisfactory let alone conclusive answers to these fundamental questions. How could I.

Calling us "a renegade band of rightwing extremists", didn't help shoring up sympathies for his cause. But neither did Bill Gray's sensationalist and holy unrelated comparison, "Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews", add any credibility to his claim that Global warming is a hoax.

"Marines to Face Charges in Iraqi's Death", trumpets The Guardian this morning.

No, this is not related to the Haditha story. This is a new development. It tells the story of an alleged murder on April 26 in Hamandiya, complete with allegations of a frame and cover up plot. And, of course there is talk of 'motive'; or the lack of it.

When the Pentagon announced it was investigating the death it provided no details about the incident other than to say that "several service members'' from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment were suspected of involvement. The servicemen were "removed from operations'' and sent back to the U.S. pending the results of the criminal investigation, it said.

Sullivan said the eight men are being held in solitary confinement.

"There's concern about the publicity of Haditha having a detrimental impact on the case,'' he said. "My concern is the whole politics of this. There's an assumption that these guys are guilty before there's been an opportunity for a thorough, impartial investigation.''

And then there is "US probes new Iraq massacre claim" video also fresh in this morning. Again, talk is of "rounding up and deliberately shooting 11 people in the house, [in Ishaqi], including five children and four women, before blowing up the building". We also learn, that "the pictures came from a hardline Sunni group opposed to coalition forces. It has been cross-checked with other images taken at the time of events and is believed to be genuine".

I can just hear the editors the world over screaming their heads off: "GET ME ANOTHER MARINE MURDER STORY IN IRAQ. I DON'T CARE WHERE YOU GET IT, JUST GET IT."

Iran is blocking news from leaking out about the current student unrests and bloody riots on University campuses throughout the country. This however is no excuse for the Western media, who have shamefully ignored the tens if thousands of Iranians protesting against the regime. We should take note:

Iranian security forces fired live bullets, and shots were fired at homes outside the university. One of the students told Rooz: "The university campus is on fire, raids are being conducted throughout the campus, and the students are in fear and anxiety... Gunfire is heard from all directions... There is blood everywhere". The university's telephone lines were reported to have been cut.

Iran Press Service (IPS) reports, that "the new wave of students unrests started a month ago when, on the proposal of Mr. Ahmadi Nezhad [our Thug-In-Chief of course], the government decided to burry remains of “martyrs” of the Iraq-Iran War in the campuses of universities across the nation."

The "enemy", for the Iranian ruling officials is, besides the "Great American Satan" the dynamic, active, prosperous Iranian Diaspora with which Mr. Ahmadi Nezhad, on advises [sic] from the leader, is trying to cut all links.

This isn't just a small band of unruly students. As soon as you are talking about 75% of the entire student body participating in the protests, you have some credible momentum.