Luai Luai, Ooooh Baby

Der Spiegel reports on the arrest and interrogation of Luai Sakra, whose story, if true, is of enormous import for understanding the nature of the terrorist threat.

Two weeks ago, Turkish police arrested an Islamist with ties to many upper tier al-Qaida members. The man not only tried to get asylum in Germany, but claims to have known about the London bombings beforehand and to have helped the 9/11 pilots.
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What Sakra told officials during his interrogation suggests a deep jihadist career... According to his own testimony, he knew about the London bombings before they happened, and supported the pilots on 9/11.

"I was one of the people who knew the 9/11 perpetrators," Sakra reportedly said in passing during the interrogation, "and I knew the plans and times beforehand." He claims to have provided the pilots with passports and money.

Sakra's accounts of his activities and contacts are given credibility by intelligence services because some of them can be independently confirmed. He was, by his own account, a major recruiter for and organizer of Islamic radical organizations throughout Europe and the Middle East and a close associate of both Bin Laden and Zarqawi. But there are also questions as to his mental stability and this leads some to discount his testimony. It will be interesting to see what comes of this.

Read the whole thing here.