Ethiopian Airline crash off Beirut was an act of Al-Qaeda terror
This was an al-Qaeda operation timed for one month to the day after its failed attempt to destroy an American Northwest airliner bound for
It is becoming clear that either a bomb was planted on the Ethiopian flight with a timer or a passenger acted as suicide bomber.
Western security agencies in the Middle East involved in combating al Qaeda believe that its planners picked on the Ethiopian flight for more than one reason apart from the date: They had been tipped off that a group of French undercover agents, including Maria Sanchez Pietton, wife of the French ambassador to Beirut, and top Hizballah operatives, including secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, would be aboard.
Mme Pietton lost her life in the crash, while the Hizballah travelers were saved by switching to another flight at the last minute.
The first bodies recovered from the Mediterranean off the Lebanese town of
Eye-witnesses at the time heard a loud explosion and saw the plane enveloped in a ball of fire as it gained altitude after takeoff from
Both France and Hizballah have denied they were targets.
Lebanese officials, led by prime minister Saad Hariri, have spent two weeks trying to hide the fact that the Ethiopian airline disaster was caused by terror. But Lebanese health minister Jawad Khalifeh gave the game away by a slip of the tongue Tuesday, Feb. 9: “The plane exploded during flight and the cabin, as well as the bodies of those on board, were dispersed into the sea, in different locations,” he said, trying to explain why some of the corpses were found dismembered.
He then tried to correct himself by saying he "didn't mean a military explosion."
More confirmation of a terrorist hand behind the attack is found in the deep involvement of
A
Al Qaeda's success in blowing a civilian airliner out of the sky over the
debkafile's counter-terror sources recall a previous al Qaeda attack on a civilian airliner in the
Six years ago, on January 8, 2004, an Egyptian charter blew up after takeoff at Sharm al-Sheikh for
Neither
Comments