The reports are new, and the circumstances are sketchy, but the US has captured Abu Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Liberation Front and “mastermind” of the Achille Lauro hijacking. He was apparently in a house on the outskirts of Baghdad when Special Forces grabbed him. CNN is reporting that he’s already tried to enter Syria where he was turned back.
Expect a lot of arguing as to whether this helps the Bush Administration’s policy or not. They will treat this as vindication of their “Iraq support terrorism” argument, which had been weak. The opposition will say that Abu Abbas isn’t a member of Al-Qaeda, so they haven’t vindicated anything.

The Abu Abbas Captured by Gunnar Hellekson, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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