Dropping the bomb(er)

Hmmm … here's something interesting:

An al Qaeda lieutenant in custody in Iraq has confessed to masterminding most of the car bombings in Baghdad, including the bloody 2003 assault on the U.N. headquarters in the capital, authorities said Monday.

Sami Mohammed Ali Said al-Jaaf, also known as Abu Omar al-Kurdi, "confessed to building approximately 75 percent of the car bombs used in attacks in Baghdad" since the Iraq war began, according to the interim Iraqi prime minister's spokesman, Thaer al-Naqib.

But, wait … I could have sworn John Kerry said over and over again during the campaign that Saddam's regime had nothing to do with al Qaeda.

Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention.

UPDATE: Commenter "Rich" writes:

I think you'll find that these bombs were made during the Bush regime , not the Saddam Regime.

Please pay more attention.

Well, I've clearly been paying a bit more attention to this than you have, Rich.

Abu Omar al-Kurdi (aka Sami Mohammed Ali Said al-Jaaf) was an Iraqi member of al Qaeda, who carried with him at the time of his arrest a photograph of himself posing with Osama bin Laden.

A veteran of al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, Abu Omar was a member of the notorious Ansar al Islam, that, during Saddam's rule, wrecked bloody havoc on the regime's Kurdish opponents in Northern Iraq (even as U.S. aircraft patrolled the skies overhead). BBC reporter Jim Muir at the time described the region as "Iraq's Tora Bora."

Prior to his capture by Iraqi security forces in January 2004, Abu Omar was chief bombmaker for the Zarqawi-led insurgency in Baghdad. But his terrorist activities—like those of former his Ansar al Islam buddies—definitely pre-date the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Thanks for offering me the opportunity to clarify that.