Follow-up: Istanbul synagogue bombings

Josh Marshall makes an interesting point in a recent post about those synagogue bombings in Turkey:

Here's some interesting follow-up on the bombings in Turkey from the Associated Press. According to suspect interrogations, al Qaida operatives initially tried to target US military installations but found them too hardened and heavily guarded.

Instead they turned to civilian targets.

Reports such as these stream through two inherently questionable sources: First, a suspect under questioning who may have any number of reasons for deceit. Second, a foreign intelligence service -- in this case the Turks -- which may have their own reasons for massaging the story.

However that may be, the suspect allegedly told interrogators that the attacks were approved by bin Laden on the condition that they not target Muslim Turks. And the attacks were apparently deemed a failure by high-level al Qaida leaders because it was mainly Muslim Turks who died.

That scruple about killing Muslims seems hard to reconcile with other al Qaida attacks in places like Saudi Arabia. So the report makes me wonder.

I like Josh Marshall and check his blog regularly. But let me be a smart-ass for a second (okay, okay, I hear you), and use a phrase he recently used in reference to conservatives who are finally beginning to comment on the ineptitude of the current misadminstration...

On November 22, I was questioning this very thing...so, Josh, "Welcome aboard".