The Saudi daily Al Watan is reporting that Turkish police have arrested a Syrian man who had conspired with at least three other men to try and assassinate President Obama (h/t BNO News):
According to the report, the man, who was arrested on Friday, was carrying a press card identifying him as an employee of Al Jazeera. He reportedly confessed to his intention to stab Obama with a knife and said that he was aided by three accomplices.
The report stated that Turkish authorities were still unsure as to whether the press card was a fake or whether it had actually been issued the man by the Qatari news network.
Al-Jazeera’s Ankara bureau chief, Yussef al-Sharif, told the paper that news of the suspected assassination plot had come as an utter surprise to the network’s staff in Turkey, adding that all of Al-Jazeera’s employees in the country claimed that they were not acquainted with the suspect.
Let me be the first to congratulate the law enforcement involved in stopping this assassination attempt. And let me be the first to say that I hope this brush with the realities of the war on terror will help to convince our President that he needs to commit to the fight. I hope you now see, Mr. President, that the terrorists don’t want to be your friend. They want to kill you, literally.
Pandering to them wont make them like you. Talking with them wont make them civil. Surrendering to them wont make them stop.
UPDATE: Ace links the story. He thinks there isn’t much to the plot because they planned to use a knife but it’s the press passes that make me think otherwise. It seems to me that the press could, at least in theory, get within knife range of the President. Especially considering Obama’s desire to make middle eastern networks like him.
UPDATE: CBN News has a little more information on this story. Apparently the man was planning on carrying out his attack tomorrow but was arrested on Friday. However, President Obama may still be in danger because the man claims that if he was to fail in his attempt his three conspirators were supposed to carry out their own attack. I’m sure the President is safe but this is still unnerving.
I’d also like to thank Hot Air, Tommy Christopher at AOL News, Protein Wisdom, and Memeorandum for linking me on this story. The consensus seems to be that these guys were just a bunch of morons with a knife and a fake press pass. I’m not so sure but I’ll keep you updated.
UPDATE: Some more information over at Today’s Zaman (h/t Gateway Pundit). According to their report two people have been arrested, all the conspirators had press passes and they were planning on throwing a knife at President Obama(?):
Meanwhile, two Syrian nationals purported to be in preparations of an attack against President Obama were reportedly detained by the İstanbul police on Saturday. According to a story that was published in Sunday’s Habertürk daily, the Turkish police and the CIA unearthed a plan of four individuals using fake identity cards belonging to the Al Jazeera television station to follow the US president’s visit as journalists and kill Obama by throwing a knife at him during the president’s Alliance of Civilizations meeting at the Çırağan Palace scheduled for tonight. Three others were being sought by the police yesterday in İstanbul, where the police have been carrying out extensive security operations to make sure that the visit passes without a hitch.
If you read the report it outlines the very stringent security measures that should be reassuring. I still won’t be happy until they catch the other conspirators or the President leaves Turkey.