Say Anything Blog

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is reported by Somali authorities to have assumed room temperature.  The man who planned and oversaw the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, killing over 200 innocent victims, and who tried to shoot down an airliner with a missile, was killed in those American AC-130 gunship and assault helicopter raids on an Islamist hideout on Badmadow Island just off the southern coast of Somalia.

It goes without saying that hiding out with a group of other hunted Islamist terrorists on a small island is not a particularly clever tactic.  But a look at a map shows that there was really not much choice.  The US backed Ethiopian forces pushed them to the coast and the island enclave, while beyond Badamadow lay a US Navy battle group, every member of which was undoubtedly praying for the chance to avenge the the bombing of the USS Cole.

Some of the more nuanced and enlightened critics of President Bush’s war against Islamist terrorists, might well regard this action by the US as the “wrong strategy,” more martial than judicial in nature, but then Mr. Bush’s predecessor had two and a half years to do something about Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, and of course accomplished nothing more than a few poignant sound bites.

The electronic mini-guns on an AC-130 can leave a terrible mess behind, but I guess the DNA was not too co-mingled to be useful.  Besides, its not like there’s gonna be a trial for Fazul Abdullah Mohammed.