Oops! Now you see it, now you don't...

Last week, I reported on a stunning U.S. Predator airstrike on a village in northwestern Pakistan that allegedly killed former Al-Qaida training camp manager Abu Khabab al-Masri (a.k.a. Midhat Mursi).  Abu Khabab had long been a top priority for U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and a $5 million reward for his capture was announced last year on the U.S. government website rewardsforjustice.net.  At the time, the reward announcement was accompanied by a grainy photo of a bearded individual said to be Abu Khabab al-Masri.  The problem, of course, is that U.S. counter-terrorism officials have somehow confused Abu Khabab's likeness for that of another notorious Egyptian Al-Qaida recruiter currently on trial in the United Kingdom, Abu Hamza al-Masri.  Most embarrassingly, the mistaken photo appears to have been taken directly from a British broadcast television interview of Abu Hamza in the U.K. from circa 1991 (before the latter's arms were blown off in an explosion in Afghanistan).  Over the last 24 hours, administrators of rewardsforjustice.net have sheepishly removed the mistaken photo of Abu Khabab after being notified of the error--and have replaced it instead with a blank shadow.

Certainly, these silly mistakes can and do happen as a matter of course -- but one is left to wonder how U.S. officials can be so certain that Abu Khabab al-Masri was killed in last week's airstrike in Pakistan if they do not even know what he actually looks like...

See also: MSNBC - U.S. posts wrong photo of 'al-Qaida operative'