Mere Rhetoric: Hamas: AQ Not In Gaza. Abbas, AQ Kidnapping Victim Alan Johnston: Yes They Are

But hey, at least Hamas apologetics have a colorable excuse to sneer at all of the unsophisticated warmongers who insist that maybe cozying up to genocidal terrorists is not just wrong but also counterproductive:

Gaza's Hamas rulers on Tuesday hotly denied letting al-Qaeda infiltrate the coastal strip, as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has alleged. In an interview Monday with Italy's RAI TV, Abbas charged that "thanks to the support of Hamas, al-Qaeda is entering Gaza." Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri accused Abbas of trying to whip up sentiment against Hamas, because of the Islamist group's recent takeover of Gaza... Abbas "is trying to mislead international opinion to win support for his demand to deploy international forces in Gaza."

There's a comment in here about how the Palestinians have some of the dumbest terrorists on the planet. As if international forces have ever seriously interfered with armies or terrorists attacking Israel. UN and EU forces appear to be more of the "get out of the way so fast Israel is caught flatfooted" and "let supplies go missing only to turn out in attacks on Israel" schools of thought. The problem with focusing on the incompetence of Palestinian terrorists is that it gets in the way of tracking how much they lie, courtesy Anne:

The mastermind behind the kidnapping of Alan Johnston, the BBC correspondent, is an experienced terrorist who fought with Al-Qaeda alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. He can be named for the first time today as Qattab al-Maqdesy, a native of Gaza who is in his late thirties.

Now how do you think that a sentence like "... but international observers pointed to the Johnston kidnapping as evidence of AQ's increasing role in Gaza" managed to avoid making it into the AP report? Why, to make way for this nonsense of course:

Al-Qaeda's presence in the Palestinian territories has been a subject of intense speculation since the 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington... Hamas leaders, fearful of deepening the group's international isolation, have suggested they would steer clear of al-Qaeda, in line with the movement's long-standing position to stay focused on the conflict with Israel.

Yeah, tons of speculation. Alan Johnston had months and months to speculate about it, in fact.

References:
* UNIFIL Involvement in 2000 Kidnapping Not News. Involvement of UNIFIL Soldier Who Thought of Lebanon as "Second Homeland", However, Is.
* Al-Qaeda veteran led Johnston kidnap gang [AP]
* [BtB]

Previously:
* What's All This Talk About A "Hamas Coup"? Hamas Was Democratically Elected To Control the PA, Remember?
* At This Point, Journalists Are Literally Just Going Through The Motions Of Covering Up Their Bias
* European Media Bias - Really?