Detaining Bilal Hussein

Bilal Hussein, a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer and stringer for the Associated Press has been in the custody of US authorities for the past five months. Why? Because he was captured along with two other men, one of whom is Hamid Hamad Motib, an alleged leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.

According to Major General Jack Gardner, Bilal "... has close relationships with persons known to be responsible for kidnappings, smuggling, improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and other attacks on coalition forces..."

Michelle Malkin has been covering Hussein's whereabouts since the issue first arose. That link also shows one of the photos that led to the Pulitzer Prize win, along with some of his work highlighting the terrorists' operations.

One has to wonder about the photographer and what he was thinking as these terrorists were holding those weapons to the person in the blindfold.

As Jawa Report and others have noted, Bilal has somehow managed to embed himself with the insurgents and terrorists operating throughout Iraq, and has taken some quite unusual photos - mainly of the insurgents propagandizing.


He's got some serious explaining to do as to why he was picked up in the presence of an al Qaeda leader. His ability to infiltrate numerous terror cells, and produce propaganda photos that are picked up by AP suggests more than simple luck. He's able to freely operate within these terror cells, which suggests that his relationship with the terrorists is far cozier than the AP would care to admit.

His attorney would like us to think that simply being picked up in the presence with al Qaeda operatives is unfortunate, but that would require us to believe that he was able to gain the confidence of terrorists on numerous occasions, freely operate and take photos of these indivduals, and yet have no operational relationship?