There are a lot of red faces at the New York Times this morning. On second thought, it’s an open question whether anyone on the Times editorial board is capable of the kind of introspection necessary to feel that emotion.
Nevertheless, the terrorist leader and planner of the 9/11 attacks is dead, killed in a house belonging to a notorious Afghan terrorist responsible for killing or wounding dozens of American soldiers. Sirajuddin Haqqani is the son of the founder of the Haqqani network, a family known for its terrorist activities and extortion plots—Osama bin Laden meets Michael Corleone.
Jalaluddin Haqqani, the father and founder of the network, had ties to the Taliban going back to the 1980s and the Soviet invasion. His son, Sirajuddin, was given a huge platform to spout his propaganda when the New York Times graciously offered him the opportunity to write an op-ed in February 2020.
It was filled with lies, half-truths, and exaggerations—about what we’ve come to expect from New York Times reporting over the years.
Significantly, the Times’ reporting on the killing of al-Zawahiri was stealth-edited to remove any mention of Sirajuddin Haqqani.
Now the Times is being accused of “stealth-editing” their reporting on the killing of al-Zawahri to remove details of the initial report specifically naming Haqqani.
“According to one American analyst, the house that was struck was owned by a top aide to Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior official in the Taliban government whom American officials say is close to senior Qaeda figures,” the Times wrote in his initial reporting.
However, that paper axed that paragraph without an editor’s note and later replaced it with language that failed to name Haqqani specifically, as first pointed out by Pluribus editor Jeryl Bier.
“After the strike, members of the Haqqani network, a terrorist group that is part of the Taliban government, tried to conceal that Mr. Zawahri had been at the house and restrict access to the site, according to a senior administration official. But the official said the United States had multiple intelligence threads confirming that Mr. Zawahri was killed in the strike,” the Times wrote in the updated story.
The Times is no stranger to hosting controversial op-eds. But shouldn’t there be a line drawn somewhere? As it is, it should be pointed out that when Senator Tom Cotton penned an op-ed during the summer of riots in 2020 calling for the U.S. military to be deployed to cities where mayors refused to enforce the law, 800 Times staffers penned a letter to publisher A.G. Sulzberger claiming “the op-ed was dangerous, threatening and not factual, adding “it put people of color in jeopardy.”
But a few months earlier, a soulless terrorist was given the same platform without even a peep from the Times’ woke staffers.
Related: Al Qaeda Leader Ayman al-Zawahiri Is Dead…for at Least the 4th Time
The Times issued a statement on this discrepancy in reporting that removed Haqqani’s connection with the newspaper.
“We regularly edit web stories—especially breaking news stories—to refine the story, add new information, additional context or analysis,” the spokesperson told Fox.
In this case, we updated a complex piece of breaking international news with additional detail from open press briefings. There is absolutely no connection between the editing of this news item and any previous publication by Times Opinion.”
No word on whether Sirajuddin Haqqani was killed in the strike as well. The terrorist gangster is now doing his best to run Afghanistan into the ground as a member of the ruling Taliban council. Perhaps he should write another op-ed about the beautiful future for Afghanistan he promised in his 2020 op-ed if the Americans would only leave.
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