Sudan Jihadis Claim Slaying Of US Diplomat From New York
From an article by James Gordon Meek:
The FBI and Diplomatic Security Service probe into the slaying of U.S. diplomat John Michael Granville of Buffalo, New York took a major new turn today when terrorists from a previously unknown jihad group claimed responsibility for fatally shooting the U.S. Agency for International Development officer and his Sudanese driver in Khartoum this week. The SITE Intelligence Group reports picking up a claim of responsibility on an Al Qaeda-affiliated jihadi Web site by “Ansar Al-Tawhid,” an alleged Sudanese terror group.
It’s too early to know if the claim is legitimate. No one has ever heard of Ansar Al-Tawhid in Sudan. But Osama Bin Laden has often urged his followers to fight any incursions by American officials or the United Nations into the Sudan or Darfur region.
While information is still scant, sources at the FBI and Department of Justice told the New York Daily News right up until the jihadi statement was issued today that they still assumed Granville, 33, was murdered in a burst of street crime or in an altercation. Granville was returning from a party hosted by British diplomats when he and driver Abdelrahman Abbas Rahama, 39, were gunned down during celebrations in Khartoum in the early hours of the New Year.
The probe is off to a slow start, The News’ sources say. The crime scene was quickly hosed down, Rahama was immediately buried according to Islamic custom and Granville’s body was mishandled by local authorities before being turned over to the U.S. Two FBI agents from the bureau’s counterterror “fly squad” visiting Kenya have been trying to get to Khartoum to join several other G-men who already have arrived, sources said. But Nairobi is closed for business because of political and ethnic violence stemming from its presidential election.
Meanwhile, Granville’s body is set to arrive at Dulles Airport outside Washington at this hour, where it will then be transported to Dover, Delaware for a complete forensic examination by government experts, a USAID official told The News’ Mouth of the Potomac Blog.
(Counter Terrorism Blog)
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