[This is the headline over a report by Martin Williams in today’s edition of The Herald. It reads as follows:]
A terrorist suspected of being the real mastermind of the Lockerbie bombing has been killed in a bomb blast, according to unconfirmed reports.
Ahmed Jibril who has been on America's 'most wanted' list for decades was reported to have been assassinated by an al-Qaeda affiliated group.
Jordanian media reported that Jabhat al-Nusra, an off-shoot of al-Qaeda, used an improvised explosive device to kill the 76-year-old who is a strong supporter of Syria's President Assad.
The reports state that the attack on Jibril took place several days ago and although the Palestinian leader survived the initial attack he succumbed to his injuries in a Damascus hospital on Monday.
Yesterday the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC), which Jibril founded and remains general secretary, denied that he was dead or even wounded.
Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Scottish Law at the University of Edinburgh, often referred to as the architect of the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands did not believe that if Jibril died that it would make much difference to the search for the truth about the disaster.
He said: "He was never likely himself to admit responsibility.
"It is possible, though unlikely, that his absence from the scene might give others the courage to speak up about his involvement.
"But I think we will just be left with what evidence already exists, particularly the $10million payment from Iran into the PFLP-GC's coffers a few days after 21 December 1988.
"There are those in the West and in the Middle East who think that Jibril and the PFLP-GC were never really important figures in the Palestinian struggle: good at raking in funds but leaving the fighting to others.
"Certainly, Jibril and the PFLP-GC are thought by some to be seriously in the frame, as contractors for Iran which was seeking revenge for the shooting down of Iran Air flight 655 by the USS Vincennes in July 1988, six months before Lockerbie.
He added: "And at the Camp Zeist trial the defence lodged a special defence of incrimination blaming Jibril and the PFLP-GC for the crime."
In March an Iranian defector, a former intelligence agent, claimed that the Lockerbie attack was ordered by Iran in revenge for the accidental downing of an Iranian commercial jet by the US Navy in 1988.
It was carried out by Palestinian terrorists based in Syria, he said, and not on the orders of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The atrocity killed 243 passengers, 16 crew and a further 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie.
Ex-spy Abolghassem Mesbahi claimed in a documentary that former Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini wanted to mirror the 1988 US strike on an Iranian Airbus and recruited a Syrian-based group to plan an attack.
Evidence unearthed by the documentary-makers included the names of four suspects belonging to the Syrian-based radical group, the PFLP-GC, with Ahmed Jibril identified as the plot's mastermind.
It was claimed he recruited one of his most trusted deputies Hafez Dalkamoni, a Palestinian PFLP-GC member, and Jordanian bomb-maker Marwan Khreesat
These recruits were arrested by German police, who discovered four bombs, months before Lockerbie. A US intelligence cable obtained by Megrahi's defence team is alleged to have said: "The execution of the operation was contracted to Ahmed Jibril…money was given to Jibril upfront in Damascus for initial expenses - the mission was to blow up a Pan Am flight."
PFLP-GC's name was identified during the Lockerbie trial - in which Libyan agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1989. Megrahi, who was released from jail by the Scottish Government on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, died in 2012 protesting his innocence and his family said they planned to appeal against his conviction.
I find it disappointing, but lightly satifying that Jibril was murdered by what it terms itself as al-Qaeda. As Jibril was a former military commander, who knew how to organise and was more than likely responsible for PAN AM 103. Follow the dosh folk.
ReplyDeleteAl-Qaeda, on the other-hand, are a desperate bunch of unconnected loons and individuals with zilch organisation, and fewer political braincells, who make vapid claims to be a threat. Dream on Chukkas. All they do is make the West laugh, and put them in detention camps for the rest of your lives without legal access.
The pity is that if we had actually got our mitts on Jibril for Lockerbie, we might have had some fun with him.
Get real al-Qaeda, whoever you think you are, because, frankly, you come over as a most unfortunate, disorganised, rabid, lost and pathetic joke. It's time for al-Qaeda to grow up to that it is a myth of the West's creation. And, the funny thing is that you are do dense, you haven't even clicked to it: we'll getting the the oil until we've run you dry, and you'll be left in a cave reciting The Koran.
ROBERT.
Apropos of the above.
ReplyDeleteYou Yes Yet?
As far as I am aware the mastermind of the Lockerbie bombing is still alive.
ReplyDeleteDear Baz and Rolfe,
ReplyDeleteI am sure you are right. Jibril was simply a conduit, who, via his military background and established organisation, could be trusted (if indeed it was him).
I am intrigued by Rolfe's 'Yet?' When I worked for the Iranian Air Force in the mid to late 70s, the SAS were operating out of the British Embassy in Teheran supplying ordinance and dosh to the Mujaheddin etc in order to bring down the entirely home grown socialist regime in Kabul because neither the USA nor the UK governments could tolerate having the USSR to the north of the Iranian oilfields, a quasi-socialist Iraq to the west and an entirely home grown Afghan socialist administration to the east.
Due to the efforts of the clandestine operations of the USA and the UK, Kabul, which was sending women to uni to become medical doctors and lawyers etc for the first time in their history. However, the efforts of the west started to pay off. Result? The USSR invaded to shore up Kabul. This act eventually crippled and brought down the USSR. I ought to point out that Secretary of State Cyrus (interesting Iranian name) Vance was perfectly clear that the Soviets played no part in the founding of the Afghan socialist regime.
The result of all these shenanigans is that today we have the Taliban, who are organised, and random, individual, deluded and certifiable idiots, who like to call themselves members of al-Qaeda.
We did this, all of it.
So, what's with the 'Yet?'
Robert
Whoosh....
ReplyDeleteAhmed Jibril may have genuinely believed that he was the "mastermind" of the Lockerbie bombing. However the key point is that bombmaker Marwan Khreesat was also a CIA "asset". One cannot be the servant of two masters.
ReplyDelete