The Saudi owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat yesterday after 4pm Eastern Time published the identity of the Mosul Mess Tent Bomber.

From L to R, Saeed, Ahmed and Hamza al Ghamdi

The bomber, Ahmed Said Ahmed al Ghamdi, was a Saudi medical student and cousin to three of the September 11th hijackers, Ahmed al Ghamdi, Hamsa al Ghamdi and Saeed al Ghamdi.
Ahmed and Hamza were aboard United Airlines flight 175 which crashed into the World Trade Center south tower while Saeed was aboard United flight 93 which crashed, following a passenger revolt, into a Pennsylvania farm field.
Curiously, not very many American news organizations, including that avowed enemy of “ill-informed rumor-mongering” bloggers the New York Times or its slightly less delicate cousin the Washington Post, find this info nugget newsworthy this Tuesday morning.
A Tuesday morning site search of the gray lady reveals a straight Associated Press report published only on the web and not linked from a headline on their homepage at 4:47 pm yesterday.
Of course, with no prior information and no revealing headline link from their (snort) “all the news that’s fit to print” homepage, how could one possibly find this online only information?
A site search of the Washington Post reveals no such story.

By 8 pm Eastern yesterday the information had appeared in several Arabic, European and Asian publications.
Also by 8pm yesterday the, to me, stunning information was appearing on select local TV news web pages, some local newpapers and, even on that icky purveyor of crap, MSNBC.

But, this morning, published information that a cousin to three of the September 11th hijackers strapped with metal projectile-laden high explosive was able to enter a secured military facility in a war zone doesn’t appear to be news to the two main American arbiters of the day’s news.
Curious, huh?

To Rupie's credit the story does appear in the, uncomfortably growing in my estimation, New York Post.

Photos: der Spiegel

- posted by Sean @ 7:02 AM