Attacker Identified; My Post Gets Some Attention

The assailant of Prince Muhammad bin Nayef has been officially identified by the Saudis, after he had been named by an Al-Qa‘ida in the Arabian Peninsula posting.

While there are still some unclear aspects to the whole story, let me emphasize that my posting of yesterday was not intended to be some kind of accusation or revelation, merely an attempt to clarify some of the ambiguities still remaining. Perhaps because nobody else is crazy enough to post to a blog on the last Sunday in August, yesterday's post has gotten more attention than I anticipated (or it deserved): Marc Lynch, fresh from vacation, bookmarked it, and Gary Sick posted the whole thing to the Gulf 2000 list, which has a lot of readers all over the Gulf region. Thanks, guys, for the attention; I really didn't think the post was all that substantive, and I'm not on some kind of campaign to question the official account. I was trying to summarize some of the comments to my earlier posts.

Anyway, one response on the Gulf 2000 list (which I'm not allowed to quote directly because it's an invitation-only listserv) pointed out that explosives can behave strangely, reminding me of the time the US almost bombed Hamid Karzai into oblivion just as he was coming to power. I'm no ballistics expert and indeed, explosives can behave strangely.

Anyway, the story is gradually emerging.