{"id":153452,"date":"2015-05-22T13:48:45","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T13:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=153452"},"modified":"2015-05-22T13:48:45","modified_gmt":"2015-05-22T13:48:45","slug":"al-jazeera-journalist-fires-back-us-placing-terror-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/al-jazeera-journalist-fires-back-us-placing-terror-list\/","title":{"rendered":"Al Jazeera journalist fires back at US for placing him on terror list"},"content":{"rendered":"

(RT<\/a>) –\u00a0\u00a0Al Jazeera\u2019s Islamabad bureau chief Ahmad Zaidan continues to refute allegations by the US National Security Agency that he is a member of both Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. Zaidan was placed on the terror list in June 2012.<\/p>\n

The revelation came from leaked documents provided by NSA mwhistleblower Edward Snowden. While it\u2019s unknown why he was\u00a0categorized in such a way, Zaiden, a Syrian national, has notably\u00a0covered armed Islamic groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban for\u00a0Al Jazeera. He also interviewed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed\u00a0Omar and Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, penning a book called\u00a0\u2018Bin Laden Unmasked<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Intercept, Zaiden hit back at the US,
\narguing that a Western journalist who interviewed Bin Laden would
\nnot be labeled a terrorist. He said that it\u2019s his job as a
\njournalist to try to reach out to all parties on any given issue.<\/p>\n

Additionally, he
\ncriticized the NSA for aiming its surveillance efforts at him.
\n\u201cTo monitor and bug journalists is absolutely immoral and
\nunethical,\u201d Zaidan<\/span> told<\/a>the Intercept. According to the
\nIntercept, the NSA was mining millions of Pakistani phones for
\ndata at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Faisalabad, Lahore \u2013 these main
\ncities are the residence of millions and millions of people. They
\nare following and surveilling every one of us. Who has made them
\nthe god of this globe?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Last week, Zaiden penned an article for Al Jazeera in which he
\ndenied being a member of Al-Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood. He
\nsaid the claim by the NSA contains glaring contradictions because
\nit stated he was \u201csimultaneously a member of Al-Qaeda and the
\nMuslim Brotherhood.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAny college freshman studying political science would know
\nthe difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda<\/em>,\u201d
\nhe \u00a0wrote<\/a>. \u201cThe two have different sets of ideologies and are
\nsworn enemies.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Zaiden also noted the timing of his name being added to the
\nterrorist watch list \u2014 according to the leaked documents, 13
\nmonths after the killing of Bin Laden in 2011, but just three
\nmonths after he had filed two reports from the battlefield of the
\nFree Syrian Army rebel group in the province of Idlib, Syria. His
\nwork angered the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and
\nstate TV subsequently branded him as a member of Al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was surprised that three years after the Syrian regime\u2019s
\naccusations against me, the NSA was repeating the same
\naccusations, while not taking notice of my reporting on the Bin
\nLaden tapes in the previous decade,\u201d<\/em> said Zaiden.<\/p>\n

CNN\u2019s own national security analyst, Peter Bergen, who has also
\nauthored several books on Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, is
\nsupportive of Zaidan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve known [Zaidan] for well over a decade and he\u2019s a first
\nclass journalist,\u201d<\/em> Bergen told the Intercept. \u201cHe has
\nthe contacts and the access that of course no Western journalist
\nhas. But by that standard any journalist who spent time with
\nAl-Qaeda would be suspect.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The Intercept said Bergen himself interviewed Bin Laden in 1997.
\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(RT) –\u00a0\u00a0Al Jazeera\u2019s Islamabad bureau chief Ahmad Zaidan continues to refute allegations by the US National Security Agency that he is a member of both Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. Zaidan was placed on the terror list in June 2012. The revelation came from leaked documents provided by NSA mwhistleblower Edward Snowden. While it\u2019s unknown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":153453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,1616],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-153452","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}