But before leaving this episode, we'd like to remind readers of the case of Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. On November 19, 2001, Amnesty issued one of its "URGENT ACTION" reports on his behalf: "Amnesty International is concerned for the safety of Iraqi citizen Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, who is being held by the Jordanian General Intelligence Department. ... He is held incommunicado detention and is at risk of torture or ill-treatment." Pressure from Amnesty and Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked; Mr. Shakir was released and hasn't been seen since.
Mr. Shakir is believed to be an al Qaeda operative who abetted the USS Cole bombing and 9/11 plots, among others. Along with 9/11 hijackers Khalid al Midhar and Nawaf al Hazmi, he was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He was working there as an airport "greeter" -- a job obtained for him by the Iraqi embassy. When he was arrested in Qatar not long after 9/11, he had telephone numbers for the safe houses of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. He was inexplicably released by the Qataris and promptly arrested again in Jordan as he attempted to return to Iraq.
There remains a dispute about whether this is the same Ahmed Hikmat Shakir that records discovered after the Iraq war list as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Saddam Fedayeen -- the 9/11 Commission believes these are two different people -- and whether Mr. Shakir thus represents an Iraqi government connection to 9/11. But there is no doubt that the Hussein regime, whatever its reasons, was eager to have the al Qaeda Shakir return to Iraq. It was aided and abetted to this end by Amnesty International.
We don't recount this story to suggest Amnesty was actively in league with Saddam. But it shows that, even after 9/11, Amnesty still didn't think terrorism was a big deal. In its eagerness to suggest that every detainee with a Muslim name is some kind of political prisoner, and by extension to smear America and its allies, Amnesty has given the concept of "aid and comfort" to the enemy an all-too-literal meaning.
So if this guy was just an Iraqi nobody, I wonder why Amnesty International was so urgently concerned about springing him. And why did he disappear, never to be seen again?
Bears repeating.
AI has become self-parody. They used to be a great "first source" -- where you'd go to find obscure stories that, invariably, checked out. Now, they are a first source for very little, they have, for about 10 years now, focused on free countries, virtually ignoring wholesale slaughter and have a disturbing connection to Islamic terror.
Link?
Shakir is mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report; both in the body of the report and in the footnotes.
He is believed to be an Iraqi who attended at least one 9/11 planning meeting. That makes him pretty important as it will give lie to the media's obsessive claim there were no connections between OBL and Saddam.
The media lies about that all the time, btw, despite the fact that in the mid to late 90's they wrote dozens of articles about the world's alarm at the growing relationship between Osama and Saddam.
A few of their headlines from the 90's are located in this link, as well as more detailed mention of Shakir and his possible role in 9/11.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1327993/posts