Jihadi Mastermind Known for Encouraging ‘Lone Wolf’ Attacks was Handed by CIA to Syria
A picture of victim Drummer Lee Rigby, of the British Army’s 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers is displayed with flowers left by mourners outside an army barracks near the scene of his killing in Woolwich, southeast London May 23, 2013. British authorities believe that two men accused of hacking a soldier to death on a London street in revenge for wars in Muslim countries are British of Nigerian descent, a source close to the investigation said Thursday. REUTERS/Toby Melville (BRITAIN – Tags: CRIME LAW MILITARY POLITICS OBITUARY) – RTXZY6O
An influential jihadi theoretician who has long called for “lone wolf” attacks was once in CIA custody.
Abu Musab al-Suri was captured by the Pakistanis and handed over to the US in 2005.
The US intelligence services released al-Suri to Bashar al-Assad and now he’s a free man, as Newsweek bureau chief Christopher Dickey explains.
“It’s a whole cynical commerce in human lives and human intelligence, as they call it, that goes on at that level and particularly at the height of the war on terror being waged by the Bush administration,” Dickey says.