The Curious Case of the Bin Laden Injury Report

Rusty at The Jawa Report has commented on the unconfirmed report that Osama bin Laden was injured in a gun battle with Spanish troops in Afghanistan.

I, for one, am shocked. There are Spanish troops in Afghanistan? Don't they know that operating in Afghanistan might expose Spain to more terrorist attacks? They're the infidels after all?

But getting past that momentary shock, why would bin Laden be leading an assault against the NATO troops (of which Spain is a participant)? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. It is more likely that if bin Laden was involved in a gun battle, it was because he needed to get out of Dodge after his hideout was discovered, not taking on heavily armed NATO troops.

It follows a previous message on several Islamic websites saying the fugitive terrorist leader was injured while taking part in an attack on a Spanish military base in Afghanistan.

The second message relaying the news is titled "Confirmation of the injury of Sheikh Abu Abdullah in the Al-Khulud expedition" and adds other details, specifying that the injury was to the left leg and claiming it was sustained "when the Sheikh went out onto the battlefield to lead the expedition during which the Spanish base was attacked and which was named the Al-Khulud expedition."

"The source has promised to broadcast soon a video of the expedition, which lasted four hours," the message continues, before concluding: "Therefore we ask Allah to heal the Sheikh and make him well again. Don't be miserly in praying for him."

I'll be withholding my prayers for his safety, instead offering prayers to the NATO forces that they discover his whereabouts in a timely manner to swiftly administer justice to bin Laden and his cohorts.

UPDATE:
MSNBC has an interesting look at how the network is handling the supposed report of bin Laden's injury. It provides a glimpse into how the network determines whether something is newsworthy and deserves to break into existing programming.

Also, one of the people that the MSNBC relies upon, Rick Francona, is someone with whom I have some personal connection to. Rick was an editor at Suite101.com when I was Managing Editor of the Politics and History group. He's an author of a book "Ally to Adversary: An Eyewitness Account of Iraq's Fall from Grace," and has some interesting insight into the Iraq conflict as well as the search for bin Laden.